Butterflies: Season 1
by KHGiggle
Summary: A massively AU Animated universe where Ratchet and Bumblebee actually like each other, Sari is a wild child, Wheeljack makes things explode, and Vector Prime provides commentary.
1. Crash and Burn

Ratchet groaned as he walked into the bridge and caught sight of what Flareup was watching. "Why are you watching history vids again?"

Flareup shrugged. "Because you won't tell me what really happened."

Ratchet rolled his optics. "I will never understand younglings' fascination with the war."

"Hey, I'm not a youngling!" protested Flareup. "And I wouldn't keep watching these if you would just tell me what happened."

Ratchet grit his denta and opened his mouth to lecture her about how those events were not something he was ever going to talk with her about.

However, before he got the chance to do so a frantic Bumblebee dashed into the ship from outside. "Ratchet! Wheeljack is messing with the space bridge!"

Ratchet cursed and ran out of the ship. Sure enough, Wheeljack was doing something to the control panel of the space bridge. Ratchet couldn't see what exactly, but it was causing sparks. He formed his magnets and quickly yanked Wheeljack away from the console.

Wheeljack yelped and struggled for a second before realizing it was just Ratchet's magnetic field. "Hey! What's the big idea?"

"You were messing with a space bridge again! You know we can't afford to blow those up!"

Wheeljack made an annoyed sound. "Oh come on, not everything I touch blows up!"

"Pretty close to everything," muttered Flareup as she stepped outside. "Why is he here again?"

"Don't ask." Ratchet unceremoniously dropped Wheeljack. "Bulkhead…" He trailed off.

Bulkhead waved from where he was hanging off a cliff by his wrecking ball. "Hi Ratchet."

"I'll get him," said Bumblebee, jumping to the top of the cliff and blasting the rocks.

"How did that happen exactly?" asked Ratchet.

"He tripped and his wrecking ball snagged on the cliff face as he fell."

Ratchet and Flareup both jumped at the sudden voice. Flareup growled and turned to glare at the speaker. "Do you always have to do that?"

Prowl raised an optic ridge. "Do what?"

"Sneak up on us like that!"

"I wasn't sneaking," said Prowl like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I just prefer to be silent. You should try it sometime."

"Why you-"

Ratchet pulled Flareup back before she could start anything. "And why didn't you do anything about Wheeljack?"

"I didn't want to get caught in an explosion."

"Hey!"

Ratchet made an annoyed sound. "Just get back to work so we can get out of here." He'd thought repairing space bridges would be nice and peaceful, just what he wanted for his retirement.

It probably would have been if he hadn't been stuck with this particular crew.

At that moment, Bulkhead fell to the ground. It looked like half the cliff fell on him too. Bumblebee winced. "Oops. Sorry about that! You okay?"

"Yeah, just give me a klik." The pile shook for a moment before Bulkhead burst out. He shook his head to get his bearings. "So…I'm just gonna go look at the space bridge."

So Bulkhead started working on the space bridge while the others got rid of the debris surrounding it. This was what inevitably happened on their stops. It was rare for anything interesting to happen. Ratchet found the monotony and expectations relaxing after all the scrap he'd had to go through during the war.

Of course something had to happen eventually. Something always happened. It was usually something small, like an argument between Flareup and Bumblebee or Wheeljack trying some new invention and accidentally blowing himself up again. Ratchet could deal with that.

Most bots would not be able to deal with what happened next.

Bumblebee blasted some rock apart. He paused when he noticed it was glowing. That had never happened before. Since Wheeljack happened to be nearby, Bumblebee figured he should make sure it wasn't anything explosive and peered into the large crack. He didn't see anything that looked explosive, just some sort of orange container with handles and glowing blue lines. Then again, this was Wheeljack he was talking about. He could probably make a rock explode.

Wait. That actually happened once. Bumblebee made a face at the memory and quickly shoved it to the back of his memory banks. "Hey Ratchet! I found something weird! Will you take a look at it?"

Ratchet rolled his optics and made his way over, expecting it to be an oddly misplaced piece of machinery.

He wasn't expecting what he found instead.

When Ratchet saw what Bumblebee had found, it only took him a klik for him to figure out what it was. It took another cycle for him to accept that what he saw was real and not some sort of virus-induced hallucination.

"Uh…Ratchet?" Bumblebee gave the medic a worried look. "You okay in there?"

"What is that doing here?!" Ratchet's shout made everyone jump. "We sent it through…" He trailed off and looked up at the space bridge. A look of realization flashed across his face. Then it became completely serious. "We need to leave. Now."

"But we're not done fixing the space bridge," protested Bulkhead.

"I don't care!" snapped Ratchet. "This is much bigger than a lousy space bridge in the middle of nowhere!"

"What's got you in a bender?" asked Wheeljack, giving the large crack a quick glance as he walked over. Then he froze and did a double take. His optics widened in shock and he turned back to Ratchet. "You transform. I'll load it."

"Am I missing something?" asked Bumblebee.

Ratchet transformed. "We'll explain once we're back on the ship. Now move!"

Bulkhead climbed down as the others loaded the strange item into Ratchet's vehicle mode. Then everyone transformed to vehicle mode and made their way back to the ship as quickly as they could.

Once they got there, they unloaded the odd item into the cargo bay. The younger bots stared at it in confusion. "So, what is it?" asked Bumblebee.

"You don't recognize it?" asked Wheeljack. "What are they teaching you young bots?"

Ratchet vented. Things were definitely going to be getting a lot more complicated now. And to make matters worse it was with a bunch of young bots with him that didn't deserve to be dragged into the inevitable mess that was sure to result. "It's the Allspark."

Bumblebee's optics widened. "The Allspark…As in the Allspark?"

"Didn't you guys send it through a random space bridge to win the war?" asked Flareup, remembering one of the key points of her war vids. "It should be lost for…the rest of our lives!"

"It might have drawn us here," mused Wheeljack. "It has some odd properties."

"So…Do we bring it back to Cybertron?" asked Bulkhead. "Or do we have to finish the repair schedule first?"

"Cybertron," said Ratchet and Wheeljack at the same time.

You knew it was serious when the two agreed on something.

They instantly ran to the control room. Everyone took their assigned positions. Wheeljack started typing something into the computer. "C'mon, c'mon…Why doesn't Perceptor ever answer his phone?!"

"Picking up a ship on the starboard side," said Prowl. "It appears to be a very large one too."

"We better get out of here!" added Bumblebee

Wheeljack was still trying to contact Perceptor. "His intern's not picking up either!"

"Try a different code then!" shouted Ratchet.

Wheeljack paused as he thought for a moment. He typed in another code that he remembered was important even if he wasn't sure who'd pick up. After a few terse moments of waiting, a young mech's face appeared on the screen. "Rodimus Prime here. What's the problem?"

"We found the Allspark!" shouted Bumblebee.

Rodimus blinked. "Really?" Wheeljack quickly brought up the image of the cargo bay that displayed the Allspark. "Well, that's good news."

"The ship is giving off a Decepticon signal," interjected Prowl.

"Wait. There's another ship?" asked Rodimus. "Scrap. Try to evade it while I get a rescue party. We'll be there as soon as possible." His image disappeared.

"The Decepticon is closing in on us rapidly," said Flareup. "Start evasion tactics?"

"Hold that thought," said Ratchet. He turned to a panel and typed in a few commands. "Activate Omega protocols."

"Negative," said the computer. "Omega protocols have been disabled in keeping with energon rationing practices."

Ratchet's optics widened. "What?!" He whirled on Wheeljack, who waved his hands in front of him in a completely ineffective pacifying attempt.

"Hey, don't look at me! I didn't know about that!"

"Uh, guys…" started Bulkhead. He pointed out the window. "Is that what I think it is?"

A rather jagged looking and dark ship could just be seen. It was very recognizable to anyone familiar with the Great War. Ratchet groaned. "It just had to be the Nemesis."

Flareup's optics widened. "The Nemesis? Isn't that Megatron's personal ship?"

"Yeah." This was looking bad. Ratchet was thinking of escape and battle plans and pushing back some of his more traumatizing war memories.

However, before he could bark out any orders, they felt a very large thump on the roof.

Wheeljack turned on the camera on the roof. It was Megatron, and he was using his fusion canon to melt through the roof.

"We're all gonna die aren't we?" deadpanned Bumblebee.

"No!" shouted Ratchet.

By this point, Wheeljack was using the mechanical arms on the roof (usually for moving heavy debris or operating in dangerous areas) to hold Megatron in place and keep him from trying to melt the roof. He knew it wouldn't last very long, but it would at least buy them some time to plan some sort of defense. "Well, what are we gonna do? He's gonna get in here eventually!"

Ratchet groaned. "I know!" Fortunately, Ratchet had come up with a couple of ideas.

Unfortunately, Megatron blew up just then and took most of the roof with him.

"It wasn't me!" Wheeljack shouted frantically.

It got worse; the explosion was strong enough to send the ship spiraling back towards the small asteroid they'd taken off from. Flareup tried to steady it, but it looked like the explosion had taken out a thruster or stabilizer as well. It looked like they were going to crash.

Then a bright flash of light enveloped the ship before shooting off towards the space bridge. The space bridge came to life, lighting up as a portal was created…

Which was pretty impressive since Bulkhead had commented it was not operational.

Before any of them had a chance to react to this, they flew right through the space bridge.

There was a brief moment of weightlessness and stillness. Then they were back in space and could see a planet of mixed blues and greens and white. Interestingly enough, they'd been slowed down some. They were still moving, and it looked like they were probably going to crash on the planet, but at least Megatron and the Decepticon ship were gone.

"So, is that it?" asked Bulkhead. "That was really…strange."

"Looks like we really lucked out," said Bumblebee. "We found the Allspark and survived Megatron!"

"Does anyone else find it suspicious that he just blew up?" asked Wheeljack. "That doesn't just happen, not even with me. There has to be a reason."

Ratchet nodded. That had been bothering him as well. Wheeljack and Flareup knew better than to mess with the ship. So what had caused this? As he wondered, he noticed something. "Where's Prowl?"

Before he could look for the errant ninja, something grabbed him and slammed him into the wall. As his vision cleared, he realized it was Megatron, who had survived the explosion. He was missing an arm, but that didn't mean much considering who it was. "The Allspark, Autobot."

Ratchet just glared at Megatron. Wheeljack took a couple of cautious steps back before throwing one of his grenades at Megatron's back.

Normally, Megatron would've grabbed the grenade and thrown it back, no problem. However, this time, he had to let go of Ratchet to grab the grenade.

While Wheeljack dodged the grenade, Ratchet put as much distance between him and Megatron as he could while forming his magnets. Then he used them to pull the lever that controlled the artificial gravity. Everyone started floating towards the ceiling. Ratchet used his magnets to stick to the ceiling. Megatron jammed the remains of his arm into the ceiling to stay in place.

Bumblebee held onto his seat. "Wow, he's even uglier up close."

Megatron ignored the quip. Instead, he was determining which Autobot was the best fighter. Considering that the only attack had been a grenade so far, he was not impressed. He threw a sword at the femme, who'd just transformed her servo into a gun. She screamed as it cut into her chest.

Then Megatron's wrecked arm exploded again.

Ratchet used his magnets to hold the surprised Megatron in place. "Bulkhead!"

Bulkhead got the picture and fired his wrecking ball at Megatron. It did hit him, but Megatron grabbed the line and, bracing himself against the control panel, used it to throw Bulkhead into Wheeljack, causing them to tumble into the cargo bay.

Megatron turned his attention back to Ratchet, who was now using his magnetism to try and keep Megatron away from him. That combined with the zero gravity was slowing him down, but he was still making his way over to Ratchet. Bumblebee was shooting at him, but his stingers didn't seem to be doing any damage.

Just then, Prowl appeared from seemingly nowhere and made to attack Megatron. Megatron swiped at him with a sword…only for it to go through him. The Prowl fizzled and disappeared as the real Prowl came at him from an entirely different direction.

The shuriken he threw did connect, but they only left scratches. Megatron hit Prowl with the sword's blunt side and into the gravity lever.

The gravity came back on, and everyone slammed into the floor. Before Ratchet could react, Megatron had dashed over to him and landed a very strong punch to Ratchet's midsection. Then he slammed Ratchet's head into the wall hard enough that Ratchet was knocked unconscious.

Prowl, who'd been sneaking up on him, tried to attack again, Megatron spun, knocking Prowl into one of the control panels. Then Megatron ran him through with his remaining sword.

Megatron briefly considered taking out Bumblebee. The minibot was frozen from terror, but he could recover. Megatron threw a piece of wreckage that was too big for Bumblebee to dodge. Now he could find the Allspark and get out.

Even he can be thrown for a loop by these many injuries.

Since the Allspark obviously wasn't in the bridge, Megatron made his way out and followed the voices.

"Blow it up? That's crazy!"

"It's better than the alternative!"

That sounded about right. Megatron picked up the pace and shoved open the door to the cargo hold. Wheeljack and Bulkhead were standing over the Allspark. Bulkhead's optics widened. "Uh oh…"

Wheeljack threw a couple of grenades he was holding at Megatron. Megatron dodged one, grabbed the other, and threw it back. Wheeljack and Bulkhead scattered. The Allspark was left unguarded.

That was when the ship started entering the planet's atmosphere. Everyone and everything was thrown back. Wheeljack recognized the feeling from other re-entries and threw a dud grenade at the airlock button. The door snapped open and promptly started sucking various items out of it. Wheeljack was partially sucked out before he grabbed onto the doorframe. His optics widened as he saw the Allspark fly towards him and quickly grabbed it with one servo, holding onto the doorframe as tightly as he could with the other. He grunted as several pieces of cargo hit him, mainly in the face.

Then the arm holding the Allspark jerked back. Wheeljack glanced behind him and saw that Megatron had grabbed onto the other handle of the Allspark. He quickly turned back around. "Help!"

Megatron ignored the shout. Instead, he focused on opening the Allspark. If he could open it, he should be able to-

*Clang!*

Megatron was sent flying out of the ship as Bulkhead's wrecking ball collided with him. The last Wheeljack saw of him, he was bursting into flame due to the speed of the reentry. Wheeljack quickly grabbed onto the wrecking ball and line as Bulkhead reeled it in, kicking the airlock button to close the doors as he was pulled in.

He practically crashed into Bulkhead, but neither complained. "Nice aim."

Bulkhead grinned. "Yeah, usually I miss!"

Wheeljack picked himself off, noting that the centrifugal force wasn't as bad. "Reentry isn't as bad now. Better go check on the others. Primus knows Megatron must have done a number on them."

It still took some careful maneuvering, but they managed to make it back to the cockpit.

Ratchet had managed to regain consciousness at some point and had presumably used his magnetic powers to hold everyone in place and free Bumblebee from the machinery holding him in place. He had now made his way over to Prowl and was looking over his injury. "I'm surprised he didn't impale my spark chamber," grit out Prowl.

"He must've been thrown off by his injury," muttered Ratchet. So was he. He was doing his best to ignore the pain in his chassis and head. He briefly noticed the Wheeljack and Bulkhead had reappeared. "Get Flareup to a stasis pod! Stat!"

"Right," said Wheeljack. He hurried over to Flareup. Bumblebee, who'd simply been pinned under the large piece of wreckage Megatron had thrown at him, was using one of his stingers to weld shut the leaking energon lines. "She stable?"

"I don't know!" shouted Bumblebee.

"You're welding me and you don't know?!" shouted Flareup.

"Yep, she's okay," noted Wheeljack. He took a moment to inspect the lines, decided that they were not leaking, and picked up Flareup and her arm. He paused as he passed Ratchet and Prowl. "Give me a second." He handed Flareup to Bulkhead. "Put her in a stasis pod and stay there."

Bulkhead, who was visibly stunned by the carnage, just nodded and hurried out of the room. Wheeljack hurried over to Ratchet, Prowl, and Bumblebee. "What's the plan?"

Ratchet looked at the wound. "I'll shut down all but his most vital systems to keep the leaking to a minimum." Prowl groaned at this. "Then you'll remove the sword, I'll keep his parts in place, and Bumblebee will weld together what he can until we have to get to the stasis pods. You'll be piloting to try and guide us to a location that won't destroy the ship."

"Got it."

"Ready!"

Prowl groaned. "Fine."

Ratchet quickly pulled open Prowl's helm and, with practiced ease, shut down everything he could without offlining Prowl permanently. Prowl's head slumped forward. Wheeljack yanked the sword out and ran over the steering mechanism. He grabbed it and pulled back to try and even out and…were those buildings? Was this planet inhabited?

Meanwhile, Bumblebee was welding Prowl's parts together as quickly as he could.

"Careful! You don't want to ignite the energon!"

"I know!" It was just that there was so much energon. Bumblebee had never seen so much spilling out of a bot before. He just hoped that he was welding the right parts together. He did not want to find out that Prowl had offlined because he'd chosen the wrong part to weld.

Was this what Ratchet had to go through during the war? No wonder he was so grumpy when they first met.

Meanwhile, Wheeljack had discovered how difficult it was to pilot such a severely damaged craft. He wished he had more time, but at this point it looked like he was going to have to choose between crashing into the city and crashing into the lake.

He hoped the lake wasn't acidic or something. His decision made, he held the ship steady until he was sure the city was out of range. "Okay, time to get out of here!"

Ratchet took a good look at Prowl's insides. It looked like it was good enough to keep him out of immediate danger. "Stasis pods! Now!"

He didn't have to say that twice. Wheeljack grabbed Prowl and made a run for it. The other two were close behind.

Bulkhead was waiting for them in front of Flareup's pod. He gave Prowl a worried look. "He's gonna be okay, right?"

"Maybe," said Ratchet. "Now move!"

Bulkhead and Bumblebee quickly jumped into their pods. Ratchet and Wheeljack took a moment to get Prowl into his pod. Wheeljack, who suspected that Ratchet was hiding at least one injury, took another moment to inconspicuously make sure Ratchet got into his pod as well. Then he got into his pod.

Just in time for the ship to hit the water. The water rushed in through the hole, filling the cockpit and the rest of the ship, making it sink. And it fell with enough force that half the front panels were stripped off.

It was going so fast that it carved a gouge into the lakebed until it finally came to a stop.

And there it sat as time moved on.

_And now, Butterflies presents Questions and Answers with Vector Prime_

The scene suddenly shifted to a large, white, gold, and red mech with an elegant design sitting on an armchair, drinking energon out of a goblet. "Greetings, I am Vector Prime, one of the original 13 and guardian of the time stream. I exist in all universes that have Transformers, and this one is no different. I'm sure most of you are aware of this."

"What most of you are not aware of is the extent of my duties. Now, some are obvious, like making sure someone doesn't try to destroy time. Others are…rather odd and unexpected. You see sometimes when authors decide to write a story, they unknowingly alter reality!" he shouted off screen.

"I said I was sorry!" shouted KHGiggle from outside the camera's view. "How was I supposed to know writing it would make it real?"

Vector Prime turned his attention back to the reader. "I have to explain the differences they cause to make certain people back off so they can repair the damage they caused. I doubt anyone in the universes I actually live in are aware of this duty, and if I have anything to say about it, they never will."

"Now, where to start…"

"No spoilers!" shouted KHGiggle.

Vector Prime sighed. "Yes, yes, I know, I've done this enough to know you author types don't like giving things away."

"Now, I think I'll start the crew. Most are unchanged. One person has been removed and two have been added. Flareup got in trouble for blowing up her instructor's living quarters. Wheeljack is there because he needed a break from Perceptor's lack of emotions and Perceptor needed a break from his explosions. Since he got along with Ratchet, he figured he'd tag along."

"Since Optimus wasn't there, Wheeljack, who has quite a bit of security clearance as Perceptor's assistant, was the one who had to contact Cybertron. He tried to contact Perceptor out of habit before contacting Autobot command."

"Rodimus answered the distress call because Wheeljack used a different code than canon Optimus used."

"The scene in the Nemesis was skipped because it was more or less the same. Same with young Isaac Sumdac discovering Megatron's decapitated head."

"The second time Megatron exploded was actually due to Flareup. Her unique mod is a gun that…is ripped off of Gantz."

"It was a cool gun!" protested KHGiggle. "Besides, I wanted to give her something besides the standard flamethrower that you'd expect with her name."

Vector Prime sighed. "Anyway, it doesn't have the standard effect of a gun. Instead of shooting a laser, it shoots a type of energy that excites the molecules of whatever it hits, causing their speed to increase until the object explodes. It does not make any sounds or lights, so you can't tell when she fires it, which is useful. She was aiming for his spark chamber, but he hit her with his sword just as she fired so the shot was sent askew and hit his already busted arm, which is what caused that second explosion."

"Wheeljack's mods have to do with constructing things and repairs. His only weapons are grenades that he makes when he's bored. Even I'm worried by that."

"Bumblebee knows how to weld because Ratchet taught him first aid. Think about it. His stingers are mainly used for welding when repairing machinery. Why wouldn't he be able to do the same with other Cybertronians? Given, he doesn't have any medical skills besides that, but he can at least keep anything from leaking out."

"There is nothing odd about Megatron slicing off Flareup's arm and stabbing Prowl through the chassis. He is a warlord. Killing others doesn't bother him. Really, he would've killed everyone where they stood if he hadn't exploded twice. He wasn't operating at full capacity. Actually, he _was_ aiming for Prowl's spark chamber and thinks he hit it. That's how out of it he was. He was just doing his best to avoid giving that away. Considering the damage he caused, I'd say he did a good job."

Vector Prime paused and looked at a random floating clock. "I believe that is the last item of note before the chapter ended. I will return when I am next needed."

"Send in questions!" shouted KHGiggle.

"…Yes, I will answer any questions about the story if you send them in a review. Make sure it isn't a stupid question. This is trying enough as it is. Good bye and good day."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	2. Waking Up

Wheeljack groaned as he came out of stasis. It felt like something had gone wrong. He onlined his optics. It took a klik for him to figure out why everything looked and felt odd. He was in a liquid, probably water according to his chemical analyzer. Well, water was normally harmless unless circuits were exposed.

Wheeljack walked out and took a moment to consider what to do. He certainly couldn't let Flareup and Prowl out. Bulkhead and Bumblebee should be okay. He still thought Ratchet had been hiding some sort of injury. He hadn't seen any cracks or sparks though, and they were going to need him at some point. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

Wheeljack woke up Bulkhead and Bumblebee.

Bumblebee yawned as he came out of stasis. "Why does everything feel weird?"

"We're underwater," explained Wheeljack. "It's normally harmless to us, but to be safe, I think we should drain the ship as much as possible before we wake the others. It can wreak havoc on our circuits if it comes into contact with them."

After determining that the only hole was in the control room, Wheeljack made sure the door to that room was firmly shut and started using the airlock to slowly drain the ship.

Eventually, Wheeljack managed to get all the water out of the ship. There was still a layer covering everything, but Wheeljack figured it would evaporate on its own.

"Rise and shine!"

Ratchet blinked groggily. "Why does everything look like it's covered in liquid?"

"We crashed in a lake," explained Wheeljack. "And since there was a large hole in the control room and we were in too much of a hurry to close the doors, the ship flooded. The three of us managed to get most of the water out though!"

Ratchet checked his internal chronometer. "What the-58 stellar cycles?!"

"Yeah, looks like this ship was damaged enough that it malfunctioned and didn't immediately bring us out of stasis…among other things." Wheeljack had a lot of repairs to make.

Ratchet immediately checked on Flareup and Prowl. Good, they were still online. It looked like the mechanism that fed them what little energon they needed still worked. Ratchet took a quick moment to check his current condition.

Looks like his self-repair protocols had fixed the damage while he was in stasis. One less thing for him to worry about. "Help me dry off the repair berth so I can start fixing these two."

"The only dry items are in the supply cubes. I'll go see if Bulkhead and Bumblebee have found anything absorbent."

Supply cubes are designed to stay airtight in all sorts of situations, including water submersion. Since so many things had been ruined by the water, Bumblebee and Bulkhead had been given the job of sorting the cubes, which had gotten mixed up in the fight and crash.

"I'm pretty sure these are parts," said Bumblebee, setting one box in particular off to the side. Ratchet was probably going to need those.

Bulkhead stared at the contents of his box. "This one is full of grenades too. Why does Wheeljack have so many grenades?"

"I think I heard Ratchet call him a masochist once."

"Oh." Bulkhead paused. "What's a masochist?"

"Beats me."

The subject of their conversation walked in. "You guys find any absorbing materials?"

"Uh…" Bumblebee took a glance at the boxes they'd managed to get through. "I think there was some in that one."

Wheeljack dug through it, pulled out some towels, and ran back out.

"Wonder what he wanted those for," commented Bumblebee. "I know those are made to absorb a lot of liquid, but I don't think those are gonna make a dent in this mess."

Bulkhead sighed as he opened another box. "More grenades. Why are they blue?"

Wheeljack started drying off the repair berth while Ratchet opened up Flareup's pod.

Flareup groaned. "Is the rebooting supposed to be this slow?"

"No, there were some complications," said Ratchet. "Now, let me take a look at that wound."

It was a clean cut, so it would be theoretically easy to weld it back on. All the leaking lines had been welded shut so she wasn't in danger of bleeding out either. However, he had to reconnect those lines to the ones in the arm, which would mean breaking them open again or straight out replacing them entirely. Not to mention that the joint had been cut in two. Ratchet would try to weld it back together, but he wouldn't be surprised if that had to be replaced as well.

All in all, she wasn't in any danger. She could move around just fine until he fixed it up. Ratchet slapped a magnetic patch on Flareup and her arm, which was still in gun form. "You're good to move around. I need to finish repairing Prowl."

Flareup spared a glance at Prowl, who was the only one still in a pod. She could understand that sentiment. There was a good deal of dried energon covering the lower half of his body. "Right, I can wait."

"Oh, don't open any doors," interjected Wheeljack. "We had to shut off access to some areas of the ship that got flooded with water."

Flareup froze. "Water?"

"Yeah, dihydrogen monoxide."

"But…Planets with water are more likely to have organic life forms."

Wheeljack nodded. "There were a bunch swimming around in here, but I think we got them all out."

"We're on an organic planet?" Flareup groaned. "That's gonna complicate things so much. I'm guessing we can't leave the planet?"

Ratchet rolled his optics. "No, the ship was too damaged to lift off. In fact, we're barely getting any power at all."

"I'm going to work on that as soon as we finish with your repairs," interjected Wheeljack. "I helped build this ship so I should be able to repair it."

"And then we'll leave?" asked Flareup

"Yeah, we need to get the Allspark somewhere safe," said Ratchet as he started to reactivate Prowl. He carefully caught Prowl before he could fall out. "The water should hide its signal, but I'd still be more comfortable if we could get it back to Cybertron."

Flareup let out a sigh of relief. "And how long should that take?"

"Hard to say," said Wheeljack. He did some quick calculations in his head. "It could take orns, even vorns if we're really unlucky."

Flareup's optics widened. "Vorns? Great, and if we keep with protocols…" Flareup sighed. "Well, can't be any worse than the space bridge stint."

"That's the spirit!" cheered Wheeljack.

"Tell Bumblebee to bring me any parts he and Bulkhead found," ordered Ratchet as examined the damage in Prowl's chassis. "I need to replace some of these parts before I bring him back online

"Sure." When Ratchet was in one of his moods, you do whatever he says to do.

Bumblebee and Bulkhead were still sorting through the boxes when Flareup reached the supply bay. "Hey, Ratchet wants you to bring him any parts you've found so he can fix Prowl."

Bumblebee grabbed one of the boxes. "On it!" He ran out.

Flareup sat on one of the unopened containers and glanced at Bulkhead, who was still sorting boxes. "Did you know we landed on an organic planet?"

"Yeah, the little scaly things were kind of cute."

Flareup stared at Bulkhead. "Scales? Aren't organics with scales usually dangerous?"

"Nah, they're too tiny, kind of cute actually. You think Ratchet will let me keep one as a pet?"

Flareup shrugged. "Maybe while we're on the planet. Taking it off the planet is probably illegal in some way though."

Bulkhead blinked. "How come?"

"It has to do with avoiding upsetting the food chain or something," answered Flareup. "The manual wasn't very clear, and I didn't really pay attention to that part."

"Well, I'll ask Ratchet anyway," said Bulkhead. "Can't hurt, can it?"

"Not unless he has his wrench on servo."

Bumblebee put the box of parts down next to Prowl. "So, is he going to recover?"

"The vital parts I've got replacements for," explained Ratchet. "They're pretty much the same size through most Autobots, unless your Bulkhead's size." Ratchet took out one part that Bumblebee couldn't identify and looked it over. He must have approved because he put it next to Prowl. "Other parts are going to be more difficult. Since he wasn't originally a member of the crew, we don't have replacement parts for his chassis and spinal strut, among a couple of other things."

"I can take care of that," said Wheeljack. He pulled out part of a spinal strut from the box. "I modified most of my own body. I'm sure I can do the same with these parts. I might need some extra metal though."

Bumblebee grinned. "I can go scavenging," he volunteered.

Ratchet froze for a split second. "Not by yourself you're not."

"But-"

"If you go out, it's with me or Wheeljack."

"What about Bulkhead?"

"Definitely not."

"Flareup?"

"Definitely not, even if she wasn't injured."

"Prowl?"

"Maybe, but he's going to be paralyzed after I'm done here and will need some rehabilitation depending on how good a job Wheeljack does on that spinal strut."

"Already on it!" Wheeljack transformed his servo into a welder and started working on it.

"As I was saying, since we're all busy, you have to wait to head up to the surface," continued Ratchet. He removed the part from Prowl and started bolting in the new one. "Now, see if you can find anything else useful in the cargo bay. We're gonna need it."

Bumblebee let out an annoyed vent and left.

"You think he'll listen to you?" asked Wheeljack.

"He better," growled Ratchet.

Flareup looked at all the boxes of grenades. "Why does Wheeljack have so many grenades?"

"Bumblebee said he was a masochist," said Bulkhead, grinning as he found a box that didn't contain grenades.

Flareup gave him a gobsmacked look. "Do you even know what that means?"

"No, do you?"

She did, which was why she was so disturbed. "I, uh, don't think…" She paused. "Oh Primus, that would actually make sense."

"What would make sense?" asked Bumblebee as he walked back in.

"Er, nothing. Forget I said anything." Flareup really wanted to forget that idea. "So, any news?"

"Ratchet said he'd be able to fix most of Prowl, but Wheeljack has to make some changes to replace everything. Then he told me to keep sorting because we're not allowed out of the ship without supervision." You could hear the depression in Bumblebee's voice. "This is gonna be so boring…"

"You actually want to go out there?" asked Flareup.

"Yeah, of course! Wheeljack doesn't recognize any of the species, so this is probably a new planet! How cool is that?"

"Technically, the planet's old," corrected Flareup. "We just didn't know about it until we crashed."

Bumblebee waved this off. "Details, details. We're still the first, and I wanna see what it's like up there."

"Well, you need to at least do some recon first," cautioned Flareup. "Even if it's an organic planet, it could have dangerous life forms or intelligent life…or some combination of the two."

"Wonder what the white grenades are for," mused Bulkhead as he found another box of grenades. That was the fourth type of grenade he'd found. Where did Wheeljack get the materials for these things?

Later:

"That should do." Ratchet hadn't replaced everything, but he'd taken care of everything that could kill Prowl. Everything else was just an inconvenience until Wheeljack could finish making replacements. "Time to wake up." He opened Prowl's helm and quickly flipped everything that would reactivate him.

It took several minutes for Prowl to come completely online. Ratchet was really worried for a moment. He'd never heard of someone being shut down for as long as Prowl had without any sort of side effects.

However, Prowl let out a groan and turned towards Ratchet. "I'm not offline?"

"Not yet. How many digits am I holding up?"

Prowl gave Ratchet a look. "You're not holding up any digits."

"Visual perception's all right then."

Prowl made a face. "Why can't I feel my stabilizing servos?"

"Your neural relay got severed," explained Ratchet. "I can't replace it until Wheeljack finishes modifying a spinal strut for you."

Prowl got a scared look on his face. "You're going to put something Wheeljack worked on inside my body?"

"He has plenty of experience with that sort of thing," explained Ratchet, well aware of why Prowl was nervous. "That's one thing he works on that doesn't explode. He knows better than that."

"Right." It was obvious that Prowl still didn't like the idea. He paused for a moment. "Did anything…strange happen while I was deactivated?"

"The water we landed in shorted out most of the ship's circuits," explained Ratchet. "It's why we're not getting any power in here."

Prowl thought for a moment. "Then how did we get out of the stasis pods?"

"Something happened that reactivated Wheeljack's pod long enough to open up. Then he manually opened the rest." Ratchet paused. "I have no idea what caused this, but we're lucky, especially you. Being shut down that long tends to have nasty side effects. We're going to have to keep an eye on you for the long term."

Prowl tensed a bit. "I see…I'll let you know if anything abnormal happens."

Ratchet raised an eyebrow at Prowl's tone but decided to let it go. Prowl was smart enough to understand that it was in his best interest to tell Ratchet if anything happened. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to help sort the supplies so we can figure out what to look for."

And Ratchet left Prowl all by himself, which was how Prowl liked it.

…Or at least he thought he did. The utter silence was suddenly crashing down on him though. Prowl swallowed nervously, wishing Ratchet hadn't left so he could ask about what was going on exactly. He'd even take Bumblebee.

Prowl blinked. Wow, he must be desperate. Usually he couldn't stand the young bot. Okay, he really needed to find a way to distract himself.

"What is that stuff?" asked Flareup.

"It's kind of gooey," said Bulkhead.

"I think the water got into this one," muttered Bumblebee.

"You're still sorting?" asked Ratchet. There were still a bunch of boxes in disarray in the back. "What's taking you so long?"

"Hey, you try doing this with one arm," said Flareup. It's a valid excuse.

Ratchet glanced into the box. He did a double take. "What is blasting gel doing in here?!"

Bulkhead pointed behind Ratchet. "I guess Wheeljack used it to make those."

Ratchet turned and saw two dozen boxes of grenades of varying colors. He twitched. "Wheeljack!"

"_I haven't blown anything up all solar cycle!"_

"Why are there two dozen boxes of grenades in the cargo hold?!"

"_Oh, right, forgot about those."_

"Well?"

"_I had to get rid of the unstable chemicals from my experiments. I didn't have any way to do that while we were traveling, so I thought I'd recycle them."_

"And you kept them in the cargo hold?!"

"_I thought they'd come in handy! I used a couple when Megatron attacked. Didn't get a chance to grab any extras or I'd have tried a smoke bomb."_

"Can I have some?" asked Bumblebee.

"No!"

"Aw…"

A whole lot of sorting later:

"Finally…" Ratchet was tired. It had taken forever to organize everything in the cargo bay, but the Autobots had eventually finished. Everything had been moved to a location, except for Wheeljack's grenades. Wheeljack had been forced to lock them in his room to keep anyone from playing around with them.

"I'm turning in for the night cycle," said Flareup.

"Oh no, not until I get a good look at your arm joint," said Ratchet. "I need to see if I can fix it or if it needs to be replaced entirely."

Flareup groaned, but didn't argue. It had never occurred to her how much of a pain having only one servo could be.

The two were surprised to hear humming when they entered the med lab, mainly because the only other one there was Prowl. He stopped when he caught sight of the two.

"Were you just humming?" asked Flareup, wide-opticed.

Prowl debated denying it before remembering he was trying not to hide that sort of thing. "Yes."

"Why?"

"It was too quiet."

Flareup gapped. "But you like the quiet!"

Ratchet groaned. It looked like he was going to have to look over Prowl's processor to make sure it was still functioning the way it was supposed to. "I'll have to give you a diagnostic later."

He sat Flareup down next to Prowl's legs and started looking the joint over. He made an annoyed sound as he realized the socket had been destroyed beyond repair. "I'm going to have to replace the socket entirely before I can reconnect the circulatory and neural networks." There was just one problem. "Prowl, I'm going to have to use the berth for this so I'll move you to your room."

Prowl frowned at the reminder that he couldn't walk on his own. That was both frustrating and humiliating. "Understood."

It was quick with Ratchet's magnetic powers. He quickly returned to the med lab to start his work on Flareup. "I'll just remove the damaged socket for now. The rest can wait until after we've had some recharge."

Flareup winced. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

Ratchet grinned sardonically. "Not as glorious as the history vids make it out to be, is it?"

And Prowl had started humming again.

Next day:

Ratchet sat up from his berth, feeling rather grumpy. It took him a few kliks to remember what had happened during the past few solar cycles. He groaned at the chaos that was now going to be his life for an unknown amount of time. He activated his com. "Flareup, you awake?"

"_I am now."_

"Report to the medical lab so I can finish working on your arm." That would take some time.

The first thing that greeted him as he entered the med bay was Wheeljack. "I finished Prowl's new spinal strut." He handed said piece to Ratchet. "Let me know if there are any problems with it. I'm gonna go see if I can repair some of the more important components of the ship." Wheeljack hurried out.

Ratchet carefully placed the spinal strut off to the side just as Flareup walked in. "How long is this gonna take?"

"Why? You got somewhere to be?"

Flareup sighed. "Oh forget it. Let's just get started."

Meanwhile…

Wheeljack, despite all his faults, was very good at what he did. He was able to get several of the more important computers back up so that they could receive wireless signals and send out probes.

To Wheeljack's surprise, the computer was actually picking up signals. "Huh, I guess that makes some sense. I did see buildings when I was trying to pilot. Guess whoever built them is intelligent enough to have wireless communication." Wheeljack thought a moment. "I should probably send the probe to look for disguises. We'll have to leave eventually, if only to keep from going crazy…"

Fortunately, the probe was one of the things that wasn't damaged. Wheeljack quickly programmed it and sent it on its way. "I guess I should fix the reformatting chamber next."

By the time the probe returned, Wheeljack had finished fixing the reformatting chamber. "All right. Let's see what it found." Wheeljack scrolled through the various pictures of vehicles the probe had taken pictures of. Some of them looked pretty interesting and some looked…less than impressive.

"Ooh! I like that one!" Wheeljack selected the picture and stepped into the reformatting chamber. Fortunately, it didn't have to change too much. He tapped his com. "Hey, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, want to go outside?"

"_Of course!"_

"Then get down here and choose a new alt mode. I got the probe and reformatting chamber working again. As soon as you reformat, we can go outside."

They were down there in a klik. "So what've you got?" asked Bumblebee, already scrolling through the pictures. "Anything cool?" He started scrolling through the pictures nearly too fast to follow. "I'll take this one!"

Wheeljack took a look at the chosen vehicle, a yellow hatchback with a black stripe down the left slide. It certainly looked like him.

Bulkhead took more time. He had to be more selective due to his size.

"_Ratchet?"_

"Yeah? What is it?" He was paying more attention to Flareup's socket joint. He'd finished replacing the socket and was now working on reconnecting the various lines and wires.

"_The boys are getting a bit stir crazy so I'm taking them out."_

"Fine. Don't get caught. We've got enough problems as it is."

A moment later, a yellow hatchback, a green SWAT van, and a red, green, and white DeLorean came out of the lake.

"_Wow, there's a lot of organics here,"_commented Bumblebee. _"They're running all over the place. You think it's supposed to be like that or is it an infestation?"_

"_Maybe they're pets,"_suggested Bulkhead._"Some of them are kind of cute. Do you think Ratchet would let me keep one?"_

"_The inside of the ship is pretty much a vacuum at the moment, and most organic life forms can't survive vacuums. They explode."_ Wheeljack may be an engineer primarily, but that didn't mean he was clueless when it came to other subjects, especially with a friend like Perceptor.

"_Oh…" _ Bulkhead was audibly disappointed. _"I guess that'd be a bad idea then."_

"_No kidding."_ And not just because of the current environment of the ship.

Wheeljack was trying to watch the inhabitants of this city as he drove through the streets and he'd noticed some things. There were robots, but they were doing various tasks, like walking dogs and cleaning. There were none that were just walking around and enjoying themselves. It was the same with the vehicles. They were just sitting there. They only moved when one of the bipedal organics got into them. Not to mention that when Wheeljack had discreetly scanned a few, he discovered that while the technology was somewhat similar to Cybertronian technology, it wasn't nearly as advanced and lacked sparks.

All in all, Wheeljack was starting to suspect that the organics were the dominant life forms and the robots were tools and drones they used for certain jobs. It wasn't unheard of, just…very rare. It usually took millions, possibly billions, of years for organics to reach the level of intelligence where they could construct machines on their own. Something usually happened to wipe out such species before they were able to reach that level.

Not to mention, a lot of the organics were doing double takes when they caught sight of the three Autobots. Wheeljack was pretty sure it was because no one was driving them. It looked like machines of their make required an organic to operate them_. "I think we'd better go back to the ship."_

"_But we just got out!"_complained Bumblebee.

"_And I think I jumped the gun on that. Take a good look. The machines of our make need an operator of some kind. If enough of the inhabitants notice that there are vehicles without operators running around, it could cause a panic."_

"_Does that mean we have to stay in the ship?"_asked Bulkhead.

"_Maybe not…"_ Wheeljack had been struck by an idea. He just hoped he had enough supplies and that he didn't accidentally make something explode. _"But it would take some time. We might be able to go out during the night cycle until then, but I'd rather be safe than sorry."_

Bumblebee groaned over the com link. _"Well, that's just great! We're never gonna get anything done at this rate!"_

He didn't argue though so they all turned around and headed back.

By this time, Ratchet had finished repairing Flareup's arm. He'd immediately started working on Prowl's spinal strut. "You sure you don't wanna be offline for this?"

"Yes."

Ratchet shrugged. "All right. Don't say I didn't warn ya."

Replacing a back strut was harder than it sounded. Back struts are attached to various points of the inside of armor and additional points inside the internal workings. To remove the spinal strut, you had to first cut through all these attachment points. To add to the difficulty, the neural relay ran through the center of the spinal strut with branches coming out of the spaces to connect to various sensors. You either had to replace the entire neural relay as well or carefully remove it from the spinal strut as you worked. Then you had to do all that in reverse.

Ratchet was hoping he wouldn't have to replace the neural relay, so he carefully started to pull the neural relay out of the various parts of the spinal strut as he removed them. "Well, it doesn't look like I'll need to replace the whole spinal strut, just the lower half."

"That's good."

Suddenly, Wheeljack came in. "Hey, Prowl, can I borrow your hologram projector?"

Prowl raised an optic ridge. "That depends on the reason."

"The dominant life form on this planet is an organic species. There aren't any sentient machines. We can't go out or they'll notice we don't have operators and get suspicious. I thought I could maybe make a hologram projector that would make it look like there's an operator in our vehicle modes."

"…There's a spare in my room."

"Thanks!" Wheeljack left with a wave.

With the young bots:

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…"

Flareup had spent the last half an hour looking at all the pictures the probe had picked up. Unlike everyone else so far, she didn't seem to actually have any interest in choosing a new alt mode.

"Oh, come on!" complained Bumblebee. "There's some really cool vehicles there! How could you not find something you like?"

"I happen to like my alt mode," said Flareup. "If I have to change it, I want it to be something as similar to it as possible."

"That'll be difficult," said Wheeljack as he walked in. "The design of the vehicles used around here are noticeably different from the default alt modes we use."

Bulkhead looked at what Wheeljack was holding. "Hey, isn't that Prowl's hologram thing?"

"Yeah, he let me borrow it so I can make a smaller version of it."

"How come?"

"If we have holograms of operators inside of us, we can move around more easily," explained Wheeljack. "Given, we can try operating during the night cycle, but someone could still notice that we don't have operators, which could cause a big mess."

"Too bad we can't stay inside" commented Flareup. "Then we wouldn't have to worry about most of this stuff."

"Speak for yourself," muttered Bumblebee. "I'm all for going outside. I hate being cooped up all the time."

"That's good," said Wheeljack. "Because we're going to have to scavenge for supplies. We don't have enough here for all the repairs we need to make, and considering how much work we've got ahead of us, I doubt Ratchet's going to let anyone shirk this duty."

Flareup growled and slammed her fists into the computer console. "This is completely unfair! Why did we have to find the Allspark and then crash on an unknown planet at the complete mercy of whoever finds us?!"

"Life's not fair," deadpanned Wheeljack.

"Yeah," agreed Bumblebee. "If life was fair, we'd still be in training on Cybertron, and you wouldn't have blown up Prowl's ship."

"Thanks for reminding me about that," muttered Flareup. Prowl had yet to let that go.

"Anyway, you have to choose a new alt mode," continued Wheeljack. "If you don't like it, you can change it back once we get out of here."

"Oh! Can I choose for her?" asked Bulkhead.

Wheeljack 'grinned'. "Sure!"

"Great! I saw something I know will fit her!"

Flareup's optics widened as Bulkhead started looking for the picture. "Don't I get any say in this?!"

Bumblebee snickered. "Too late…"

"Found it!"

Flareup sneaked a glance at what Bulkhead had chosen. It was a streamlined motorcycle with a cover over it so that the rider had to lean forward to drive it. It did look pretty cool. "It'll do…"

Much later:

"There. Finally done," said Ratchet, pulling away from Prowl. "You should be able to feel sensation, but since I patched your neural relay you're going to be shaky on your legs until you adapt to it."

Prowl carefully pushed himself up turned so he was sitting. Well, he could feel his stabilizing servos again, although the tingling feeling was new and slightly worrying. He cautiously pushed himself off the berth.

Prowl nearly fell over. The only reason he didn't was because Ratchet was close enough to grab him. He groaned. "This is incredibly humiliating."

"Don't worry. I'm sure I've got something you can use for support." Ratchet set Prowl on the berth and started digging around in the supply cabinet.

Prowl sighed. "How long is this going to take?"

"It varies from bot to bot." Ratchet pulled out a couple of spare pipes. "The more you try, the faster your systems will be able to adjust, so I suggest you don't slack off." He handed a couple of pipes to Prowl. "That should do for now. If you need something sturdier talk to Wheeljack about it."

Prowl carefully stood up, this time using the pipes for support. It was incredibly awkward, and he was sure he looked like a fool, but at least he didn't fall over this time. He braced himself and cautiously took a step forward before moving the pipe forward as well. "This could take some getting used to."

"It's only temporary," said Ratchet. "Once you stop falling on your face whenever you try to walk, you can stop using them."

"And the more I practice, the faster I'll recover?" Ratchet nodded. "Then I'd better start practicing."

Given what Ratchet was like, Prowl decided he should leave the med lab for the moment. He paused in thought. Where to go now?

He decided to head towards the shouting.

Prowl managed to stumble into Wheeljack's lab where Flareup and Bumblebee were arguing and Bulkhead was trying to play peacekeeper. Wheeljack was tinkering at his workbench and ignoring the argument. Prowl carefully maneuvered over to Wheeljack. "What's going on?"

"Bumblebee is trying to convince Flareup to go outside. Flareup doesn't want to go because of some kind of military regulation," explained Wheeljack. "Personally, it seemed fine when I went up there before."

"I've never been to an organic planet before," mused Prowl. "I'd like to see what it looks like, but I'm guessing I won't be able to leave this ship until I have better control over my lower body."

Wheeljack nodded. "If you try, Hatchet will make sure to put a couple of dents in your helm."

"He'd do that?"

"He's done that. Several times. Why do you think he got a nickname like 'Hatchet'?"

"Point taken." Prowl glanced at what Wheeljack was working on. It looked like a very small projector. His spare projector was off to the side. "I thought you were going to work on that."

"I just want to get a look at it to see how it worked. That way I could build something similar," explained Wheeljack. "It won't be nearly as versatile as yours, but it will be adequate for our needs."

"Will it explode?"

Wheeljack gave Prowl a look before muttering under his breath about how not all of his inventions exploded. "I'll test it on myself first if it'll make everyone feel better." He grabbed Prowl's hologram projector and handed it to him. "You can have this back if you need it."

Prowl raised an optic ridge. "How am I supposed to hold it?"

"Oh…" Wheeljack's fins flashed pink with embarrassment. "Good point. I'll just drop it off in your room."

Prowl nodded. Honestly, that was all he had to say. He wasn't much of a conversationalist. He looked around. "What's that on the computer screen?"

"Images the probe picked up. You can look for an alt mode if you want to, but you won't be using it for a while. Oh, and check and see if it's finished translating the local language. Then we can start researching their local information network."

"Well, it's better than nothing." Prowl carefully avoided the arguing group and sat down at the computer. He couldn't believe how tired he was. He'd been walking for barely a megacycle. Actually, he was pretty sure it had been less than a megacycle.

Prowl cycled through the pictures for a while, occasionally checking on the progress of the translation.

Oh, look it was done. Prowl quickly downloaded the new language and used it to look up information on the various vehicles. He was briefly tempted to look up more of those terms, but he didn't want to stay sitting for too long.

*Clang!*

Prowl jumped slightly and turned around. It seemed Ratchet had gotten tired of the argument and decided to hit Bumblebee and Flareup over the helm with one of his wrenches. "Will you be quiet?! I can hear you all the way in the med lab!"

The two bots muttered apologies under their breath.

"The translation's done," said Prowl.

Wheeljack immediately ran over and leaned over Prowl to get a look. "Okay, okay, pretty simple compared to Cybertronix. This should help us figure out the local culture."

He pulled back, well aware that Prowl liked his space, but now Ratchet was leaning over him. "Good, one less thing to worry about. You almost done with the hologram projector?"

"Almost. You don't want anyone blowing up, do you?"

Not for the first time, Prowl was glad he was naturally able to produce holograms.

A few megacycles later, Wheeljack had finished the hologram projectors and installed one into his body. Prowl stayed in the room with him oddly enough. He spent some of the time walking back and forth across the room and the rest of the time looking at information on the computer. Wheeljack took a moment to look over the various pictures of humans on the internet, programmed the hologram, checked the local laws, and left for the surface to test it out.

It was night when Wheeljack drove out, and he noticed that the city was considerably less crowded. There were still several robots, cars, and the occasional human walking down the street, but it was a lot less crowded than before. Wheeljack made a mental note that it probably would be safer for them to move about after dark.

Wheeljack drove around aimlessly for a while before finding a junkyard. Wheeljack idled next to the entrance for a moment. One bot's junk was another's treasure, after all. Well, he didn't see anyone else, and he wasn't picking up anything that might be able to record him.

He transformed and gingerly stepped over the barrier to the junkyard. "Now, let's see if I can find anything useful." He was going to need a lot of material to fix that hole in the control room, along with the other repairs that were needed.

"No, no, no…" Wheeljack paused as he looked over a car hood. "This looks pretty good. Hardly any rust on it."

Wheeljack cut the hood into pieces small enough to slip into his subspace. He started looking for additional pieces. He was quite pleased to find a few that were small enough that he didn't need to cut them up.

Some wind coursed through the junkyard. Wheeljack ignored it, but he did catch something red out of the corner of his optic. Curious, Wheeljack turned to see what it was.

It was a human perched on top of the fence…At least Wheeljack was pretty sure it was a human. It looked really different from the humans he'd seen so far so he wasn't sure. It was crouched on the top of the fence and staring right at Wheeljack. There was a veritable mane of red hair falling down its back, which was probably what Wheeljack had seen. The human was covered in some sort of stiff, stitched together material over most of its body, except for its head and arms. The material seemed to conform to its body except for a loin cloth. It was wearing a wooden mask over its face. Its arms were bare and had some scars visible on their very dark brown skin.

Wheeljack stared. This was a human, right? It was the right size and shape and colors. It was wearing manufactured coverings, even if they looked a lot rougher and more primitive than normal coverings. Either way, he really wished he hadn't been seen. This was something they were supposed to avoid since the human species didn't seem developed enough for an official first contact.

Well, might as well, try to salvage this. Wheeljack waved his servo in what he hoped was a friendly gesture. "Hi there! I'm Wheeljack. What's your name?"

The human just continued to stare at Wheeljack. It was pretty eerie. Just as Wheeljack was considering asking if it (Was this male or female?) could speak, it dropped off onto the other side of the fence and darted off.

"Nice meeting you!" That was strange.

Well, might as well finish scavenging before he headed back. He needed to make these trips count.

One trip later, Wheeljack was back in the ship and sorting the metals in his lab. "So, I ran into a human."

"_You what?!"_shouted Ratchet.

"Not literally! She showed up out of nowhere while I was sifting through the metal. At least I think it was a she. She just sort of squatted on the fence and stared at me. Didn't even say anything." He paused and looked over at Prowl, who was reading something on the computer again. "Do they have ninjas on this planet?"

"Yes, mostly on a small island nation called Japan." Prowl had decided to base his holoform off the natives of the area since the two practices seemed somewhat similar.

"Okay, maybe she was a ninja."

"_You're joking, right?"_

"No, she literally appeared out of nowhere, stared at me for a bit, and then ran off. It was strange, but she didn't act like she was going to do anything."

"_You still should've been on guard. We're trying to stay under the radar, remember?"_

"Sorry. She was dressed differently from the humans in the city. I don't think she's from the same faction."

That silenced Ratchet for a moment. _"Do humans even have factions?"_

"I don't know. I guess I can look it up later. Anyway, she really stood out. I guess she could still live in the city, but I'm sure most of the city's inhabitants would know about her."

"_And what do you plan to do about this?"_

"Uh, I'm not really sure. I have no idea where she went or why she would be interested in me…Besides, you know the obvious. All I can think of is to avoid going topside for as long as possible, but I'm gonna have to go out again, if only to gather more supplies for repairs."

Ratchet made an annoyed sound over the com. _"Well, try to avoid it as long as you can."_

"How?"

"_I don't know! You're the engineer! Figure something out!"_

Wheeljack tossed some metal into the appropriate container. "I'll try. That's going to be easier said than done though." Seriously, he could do all sorts of stuff that most bots wouldn't be able to pull off, but he had his limits.

Plus there was the weird human. He should probably avoid her…which would be a lot easier if he knew something about her.

"Hey, Prowl, can you see if you can find anything about a strange looking human in stiff clothes?"

Prowl raised an optic ridge at Wheeljack before finding a search engine and entering 'strange human strange clothes'.

Well, that wasn't going to work. Apparently there were more strange humans than they originally thought. Maybe if he added 'Detroit'.

Nope, he was still getting a lot of results, even after he added 'female'. "What was the human's coloration?"

"Brown skin and red hair."

"What about eyes?"

"I don't know. She was wearing a mask."

Prowl made an annoyed sound but entered the coloration information. He glanced at the pictures. "Do any of these look like the human you saw?"

Wheeljack took a break from his sorting to lean over Prowl and scroll down the pictures. "No, no, no, no, no, no…None of these look like her, and the clothes are all wrong."

Prowl decided enough was enough. "Then maybe you should be the one doing the searching." He then vacated the chair in favor of finding something else to do.

Wheeljack decided Prowl was right and sat down in the chair, scrolling down the few remaining pictures before returning to the search criteria.

He entered 'stiff clothes'. It got quite a few results and it was a few minutes before he could find something that looked even remotely resembled her coverings. "She's wearing an animal's skin?! Why would anyone want to do that?!"

Wheeljack shuddered as he tried to imagine what that would feel like and continued reading about it. Really, killing animals for their skin. It was positively primitive!

Now, there's a thought.

Wheeljack entered 'primitive clothing'. The results were more like what the human had been wearing, but there were still some differences.

Did this mean there were a bunch of primitive humans running around? That was weird. If nothing else, it was unlikely she lived in the city if her coverings were so primitive.

Content with what he'd discovered, Wheeljack went back to sorting the metal. Hopefully, he'd have the correct amount to make the alloy they needed to repair the ship.

After all, what were the chances one of them would run into that particular human again?

_And now, Butterflies presents Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

Veccy looked up from a picture he was looking at. "Oh really? How immature can you be?"

"With how old you are everyone's immature compared to you."

Veccy rolled his optics at the argument. "If I hadn't been called worse…Let's just get a move on."

"Rest assured, things will start to pick up soon, if you want action. The author just felt that she needed to show how the Autobots are dealing with the immediate aftermath of Megatron's attack and crashing on Earth."

"Now, as to the forms they chose. Bulkhead and Bumblebee chose the same alt modes as canon. Wheeljack is a DeLorean. Yes, she chose that as his alt mode. She thought it looked like his alt mode picture on tfwiki and considers him a mad scientist and went with it. Flareup turns into a motorcycle with a cover, or whatever it's called. I don't care what it's called and the author does not know how to tell one type of motorcycle from another and couldn't attach names to them even if she did. However, it was inspired by the light cycles from Tron."

"The author once read that Ratchet's nickname is Hatchet. She can't remember if this is canon or fanon, but she thinks it fits him considering his personality."

"The author was going to describe Wheeljack's holoform. However, that involved a long and convoluted explanation that she decided was too boring so she took the scene out and asked me to describe it to you. He looks like a large Scottish man with a beard and moustache. Because for some reason, she keeps imagining him with a Scottish accent instead of a Brooklyn one."

"I don't get it either," muttered KHGiggle.

"You may think that Wheeljack going to a junkyard for supplies won't work due to how complex the ship is. However, throughout the universe, the elements are all the same. As long as he can get those elements, even if they're already in an alloy, he can make the material he needs. It just has to be mixed together correctly. Wheeljack is skilled enough to do this most of the time. The rest of the time…You know how it goes with him."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	3. Enter Starscream

Starscream jerked out of recharge as the alarms went off. He stumbled over to the computer. "This had better be good…" As he typed into the computer, several readouts were displayed on the screen. Starscream blinked and ran the scanning program again. The result was the same. He grinned.

"Well, well, well, things are finally looking up."

Earth:

"Okay, does everyone have their hologram projectors in place and their drivers programmed?" asked Ratchet.

"Yes," said all the others with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"Do they look normal?" drawled Prowl. He was getting left behind due to the fact he was still having balancing issues in his alt mode. "You'll get just as many stares if your avatars don't fit in with the rest of the population."

"I supervised the designs," said Wheeljack. "They're normal enough."

"I'm just glad that we finally get to leave," said Bumblebee. "I feel like I'm going to go crazy if I stay here for another second."

"I still don't think this is a good idea," muttered Flareup.

Ratchet groaned. "Look, we need supplies." Wheeljack had already used up what he'd managed to find last time he went out. He'd suggested having everyone who was able help him out so that scavenging wouldn't have to be done as often. "Since making contact with the natives is out for the moment, we have to go scavenging."

"What about that femme Wheeljack ran into?" asked Bulkhead.

Wheeljack's ear fins flashed pink at the reminder of his odd encounter. "Well, technically she made contact."

Ratchet's optic ridge twitched. "We've established that she's probably some sort of outcast so she doesn't count."

"Can we talk to her if she shows up?" asked Bumblebee.

"No," deadpanned Ratchet. He still had enough doubts about the weird human that he wasn't letting any of the younger bots talk to her. "Now transform so we can get out of here."

As the Autobots rolled up and out of the lake, they had no idea what sort of trouble was going to happen that day.

Starscream didn't have very good landing skills. Don't get him wrong. He's great at flying. In fact, he's the best. His personal landings are flawless. It's ships that he has trouble landing. It didn't help that the ship he was trying to land was blown to scrap.

So when Starscream tried to land on the planet's satellite, he crashed so badly that the ship split in two. Starscream had to grumble at that. He'd have to find another way back to New Kaon now.

Starscream eyed the planet. It was a mix of colors, which usually meant a chaotic ecosystem. Oh well, he'd flown in worse. Besides, it would be worth it if he could get his servos on the Allspark.

Prowl was going crazy.

Prowl had always liked the quiet. He hated loud noises and bots who talked for the sake of talking. They were so annoying and distracting. He'd much rather stay in the vacuum of space where sound couldn't travel. He never would have expected that to change.

…Except it had and now Prowl found he could barely stand the silence for more than a cycle. It was why he'd started humming. Then he'd started tapping his fingers. Then he got up and started moving to try and distract himself. Ugh, he'd even prefer Bumblebee's rambling to this. How long had it been since the others left?

A megacycle. Prowl wasn't going to last for much longer.

Prowl tried meditating. He really did. It made it worse so he stopped. That was mildly terrifying. Meditating was something else he liked.

After several attempts to distract himself, Prowl was desperate enough to try going outside.

Of course, that was underwater. There was some sound. It was enough that Prowl felt a bit more comfortable. He took a moment to watch the fish swim by.

Well, what was he supposed to do now? While he didn't mind standing still, that seemed like a waste of time given his current position. He'd just walk around a bit.

To Prowl's surprise, it was actually easier to move around in the water than it was in the ship. Maybe having material surround him offered more support. Given, he still needed the makeshift crutches to balance, but it was still better than how he'd been walking for the past few solar cycles.

Well, Starscream couldn't find any trace of the Allspark. He was still capable of picking up the signal, but he couldn't pinpoint it. He tried to map out the diameter, but it wasn't a perfect circle. In fact, it didn't look like any shape in particular. It was a blob. So Starscream had looked around for anything that seemed like a good hiding place. He figured the Autobots wouldn't be stupid enough to hide in the city full of aliens. So he was looking over the other areas.

Why, oh why, did the Allspark have to land on a backwater organic planet with thousands of hiding places? Was it too much to ask for him to actually get what he deserved for once?

Down below, Prowl had decided to explore the bottom of the lake as much as he could. He knew for a fact no one else had bothered to, and he thought the information could be useful.

He watched a school of fish swim by. That was another thing. The creatures living in this lake were quite interesting. Were all organics like this? They seemed harmless enough. Prowl thought they were actually quite lovely.

Starscream suddenly started picking up a signal. He closed in on it, but was disappointed when he recognized it as a fairly standard Cybertronian frequency. It definitely wasn't the Allspark.

Starscream was only disappointed for a klik before his more rational side kicked in. Considering how backwater this place was, it was unlikely there were any other Transformers besides himself and whoever had found the Allspark. This was likely an Autobot. Starscream grinned and dropped.

Prowl jumped as he heard what sounded like a splash. He awkwardly turned around, but didn't see what had caused it. Now slightly nervous, Prowl suspected it was time to return to the ship. He was sure it was in that direction.

Prowl froze up a split second before Starscream barreled into him. Prowl made a brief attempt to fight back that ended suddenly when he was slammed against a particularly large rock. His vision swam as he focused in on his attacker. The first thing he noticed was the purple symbol on his wings. _'A Decepticon? Already?'_

Starscream smirked at Prowl. "You're one of the Autobots guarding the Allspark? Pathetic!" Starscream had seen the crutches. This mech couldn't even walk. "Now be a good mech and tell me where the Allspark is, and maybe I'll let you function."

Prowl's processor raced for several kliks as he tried to think of a way out of this situation without giving away the location of the ship and the Allspark. He certainly couldn't take on a Decepticon on his own, especially since he could still barely walk. He'd have to contact the others, but first he had to get away. He'd probably have to stay underwater if he wanted to have a chance.

Prowl kicked Starscream in the face while spinning the wheel as fast as it would go. It was enough to loosen Starscream's grip, and Prowl kicked off Starscream's chassis. Then he threw a shuriken at Starscream's face.

His kick hadn't been that strong for obvious reasons, but his aim was as good as ever. The shuriken hit Starscream right in the optic. While Starscream was shrieking, Prowl activated his com link. "This is Prowl! I'm under attack! I repeat! I'm under-" Prowl's transmission was cut off as Starscream fired his null rays at him, forcing Prowl to clumsily dodge.

Starscream was scowling at Prowl, energon leaking from the mess that had been his right optic. "You're going to pay for that!" snarled Starscream, firing his null rays at Prowl, aiming to kill.

Fortunately, losing an optic causes a bot's depth perception to be skewed until the optic is replaced or they get used to the loss. Starscream's blasts were off enough that Prowl was able to dodge them. He tried to swim away by copying how he'd seen the fish move.

Unfortunately, Starscream decided to use close quarters combat since the null rays obviously weren't going to work. His thrusters propelled him through the water, and he was easily able to land a punch to Prowl's chassis.

Given, Prowl was able to angle himself so that it didn't do as much damage as it could have, but it had enough power that he was sent flying through the water. He was prepared when Starscream came in for another attack and parried it with a chakram. Starscream pulled back his servo, rather than risk something getting cut off. Instead he kicked Prowl up and out of the lake.

Prowl shot out of the lake and fell onto the shore with a long shout. He groaned. "I must be out of practice."

Then Starscream shot out of the lake as well. He grinned and pointed his null rays at Prowl again. "Can't fight now, can you?" Prowl tried to get up, but his legs still couldn't support him and he fell back down before he was even halfway up. "Don't think I didn't notice you needed extra support to stand. The only reason you could move was because of the extra density of the liquid. So, I'll ask you again: Where is the Allspark?"

Prowl grit his denta and gave Starscream a defiant look. The seeker shrugged. "Suit yourself." The null rays lit up…

And a gray and dark yellow blur collided with him. Starscream shrieked as he tried to get off whatever was biting into his servo. He finally managed to punch it off and got a good look at it as it landed on the shore. It was some sort of organic with claws and fangs and wings, was growling at Starscream, and had energon smeared around its muzzle. Starscream instantly decided it was hideous and glared at it. "You mangy, organic mutt!" He took a pot shot at the creature, but it dodged deftly and jumped at Starscream again. Starscream shot up. "Ha! Try reaching me-" The creature flapped its wings, propelling itself towards Starscream. "Now…" The wolf collided with him again, latching onto his shoulder with his jaws this time while slashing at the rest of Starscream's body with its talons and claws.

Starscream shrieked and grabbed at the creature's wings, hoping they were as sensitive as his. They were, and the creature let go with a yelp. Starscream took advantage of this and threw the creature away from him. Then he fired his null rays at it.

One clipped its back leg. Looks like Starscream's aim was still off…so the creature clamped onto one of Starscream's servos. Starscream shrieked and started to kick at the creature. "Let go! Letgoletgoletgo!" He finally kicked the creature off of him…

But the creature kept its grip on his servo, ripping it off as it was sent flying back. Starscream shrieked and transformed, deciding he'd lost enough body parts for one day, and flew off.

The creature shook the servo another couple of times before throwing it to the side. It turned its attention to Prowl. Prowl's optics widened. Even if he hadn't just seen it tear into Starscream, the energon coating it would've made him nervous. It padded over to him. Prowl clenched his servos, mentally preparing himself for the attack that was sure to come. The creature sniffed at him, opened its mouth…

And started licking Prowl's face. Prowl blinked. "You're not attacking me?" It responded by lying down next him. Prowl stared for a klik, trying to figure out what he was looking at. He'd been looking at pictures of Earth's wildlife, but he hadn't seen anything like this before. It looked like a very large, gray wolf for the most part. However, it also had birds' legs instead of front legs, tail feathers instead of a tail, and a pair of brown-yellow, feathered wings coming out of its shoulders.

Prowl honestly wasn't sure what to make of this…wolf? He decided to just refer to it as a wolf for simplicity's sake. On one servo, it had just attacked and seriously injured a Decepticon. On the other servo, it was now lying next to Prowl and making absolutely no move to indicate it was violent. Prow cautiously raised a servo towards the wolf. It didn't react. Prowl experimentally scratching it behind the ears. It leaned into his touch slightly. "Huh."

Then his com flared to life. Prowl quickly answered it. "Hello?"

"_Why didn't you answer?!"_

Prowl winced and the wolf tensed at Ratchet's exclamation. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were trying to contact me."

"_How could you miss that?!"_

"I was distracted."

"_Is it a Decepticon?"_ asked Flareup. _"Are we being attacked?"_

"It was a Decepticon," admitted Prowl, ignoring a swear from Ratchet. "He left."

"_Please tell me he didn't leave with the Allspark,"_said Wheeljack.

"No, I was outside when he showed up."

"_What were you doing outside?!"_ shouted Ratchet._ "You're not in any shape to be moving about outside without some kind of supervision!"_

Prowl grit his denta. "It was driving me crazy."

"_Ha! Told you I wasn't the only one with cabin fever!"_ crowed Bumblebee.

"Okay, maybe I did have cabin fever," admitted Prowl. It hadn't really occurred to him before. Maybe that's what it was. "Now that I think back on it, it was a bad idea."

"_So, how did you get the Decepticon to leave?"_asked Bulkhead. _"No offense, but you're not exactly…you know."_

Prowl vented. "Yes, I know. I wasn't the one who chased him off. A rather large organic creature did that. I'm not sure what it is exactly." The wolf gave him a look. While Prowl wasn't familiar with canine expressions, if he had to choose an emotion, it would be annoyed. "Don't look at me like that. It's obvious I didn't make him retreat. In case you haven't noticed, I can barely move my stabilizing servos."

The wolf got up and started sniffing at Prowl's stabilizing servos, like it was checking to see if Prowl was telling the truth. Prowl didn't bother to watch and instead looked up at the sky.

…It was a nice sky, a mix of blue and white.

…And the atmosphere was nice. There was no one talking, but it wasn't quiet. He could hear sounds in the background that he barely recognized. They were probably more animals. And he could hear the wind blowing. It wasn't the type of quiet he was used to, but something about it was more…peaceful. Prowl hadn't felt this relaxed since before they found the Allspark.

Prowl was jerked out of his musings by the wolf jerking up and suddenly running back into the forest. A few kliks later, the rest of the Autobots drove up and transformed. Ratchet immediately started looking Prowl over while muttering about young bots not thinking things through.

Wheeljack picked up the detached servo and looked it over. "It looks like this was ripped off. Most of the weapon is still attached. It's somewhat crushed as well." Wheeljack turned to Prowl. "You said an organic creature did this?"

"Yes," said Prowl. "It was clipped slightly, and its internal fluid was red."

"What sort of organic could rip off a Decepticon's servo?" asked Flareup. "Scrap. Do we have to worry about this thing now?"

"It stopped acting violent as soon as the Deception left," said Prowl. "It sat down right next to me and acted docile. I…I think it was intelligent."

"We can discuss this after we get you back to the ship," said Ratchet. "Your injuries aren't too bad, but I have to repair them or they'll get worse."

Bulkhead had spent this time looking around the area. "What happened to your crutches?"

"I dropped them in the lake. I don't know where they went."

"I'll find them!" said Bumblebee. He jumped into the lake before anyone could stop him.

"Should we stop him?" asked Wheeljack.

Ratchet shrugged. "Can't afford to spare anything right now." He hefted Prowl up, throwing his arm over his shoulders. "Let's get back to the ship. I don't want any other Decepticons to fly by and see us."

The rest of the Autobots transformed and drove into the water. Prowl had to be walked back, but he didn't complain. This could have ended very differently for him. As it was, he was lucky to be alive.

Up on the moon, Starscream had returned to the Nemesis and was constructing a new servo, which was more difficult than it sounds when you only had one servo. He scowled as the servo shifted under the tool again. "Okay, one more thing to add to my slag list: Flying organics with sharp teeth. Next time I see that…thing, I am giving it a piece of its own medicine!"

_And now Butterflies presents: Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

Veccy was glaring off to the side. "Why is that there?"

"I don't know! You're the expert on this sort of thing!" shouted KHGiggle.

Veccy turned his attention back to the reader. "My apologies. Something came up in the past few minutes."

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering about the holoforms. Ratchet and Bulkhead's are the same as their human forms in Soundwave's virtual world in canon. Bumblebee's looks similar to his human form, only older as you have to be 16 to drive. Prowl's hasn't been needed yet, but it's different from the policeman in the show. His looks like a Japanese man."

"How 'bout Sulu?"

Veccy paused and shrugged. "Sure. Why not? Flareup's holomatter form is an attractive female human wearing a red and orange bodysuit with a red visored helmet. Sort of like the Prime version of Arcee's hologram avatar."

"Starscream's servo is now in Wheeljack's lab. Starscream isn't getting it back."

"Also I am pleased to announce we have our first question from Primusworshipper."

_Hey Vector Prime, when are we going to see your brothers and sisters? Or have them as special guests?_

"That would depend on what you mean by 'see.' If you mean just see in this story in general, that could be iffy both because it is still being written and because giving out such information would give away possible bits of the plots, which most would not appreciate." Veccy paused for a moment. "Although Alpha Trion will eventually appear as he is a canon character in the Animated universe."

"Is he actually related to you in this universe?" interrupted KHGiggle. "I'm pretty sure he's one of the first 13 in the Prime universe, but I'm not so sure about the Animated universe. Where's that timeline…" KHGiggle took a moment to look up some info. "The Transformers race is 10 billion years old…I can't find his age right now, but I wanna say he's like 4 billion years old."

Veccy nodded. "Yes, Alpha Trion's situation is very complicated, even by my standards. He is a multiversal singularity, so he will appear in all universes where Primus and Unicron exist. Unlike myself, he is not always aware of his role, and quite often he is not one of the First Forged. However, he often has some sort of instinctual understanding of the way things need to go in a universe to keep Unicron from wreaking havoc, and he will find himself compelled to fulfill these duties or at least make arrangements so that others can fulfill these duties. In the case of the Animated Alpha Trion, he is not one of the First Forged nor is he aware that he is a singularity. He does have that instinct about what is necessary to keep things from getting out of hand though, and he's performing his duties quite well."

"Are you still answering the question?" asked KHGiggle. "This is sort of getting off subject."

Veccy nodded. "Yes, yes, I was just getting back to that. Anyway, I'm not actually related to Alpha Trion in this universe, but he's an adopted brother of sorts. The siblings that do exist in this universe are Solus Prime, Micronus Prime, Alchemist Prime, Nexus Prime, Onyx Prime, Liege Maximo, and Megatronus. If you want them as guest stars…It's doable, but this dimension is located outside of space and time, so it would be difficult to bring them here and then put them back when and where I got them from. Then there are some I absolutely refuse to let in here." Veccy thought for a moment. "The Allspark actually makes it easier to contact my siblings. Perhaps I can have them over as guests when its power is spiking."

"What the heck?!" shouted KHGigggle. "Why does TFWiki say that Optimus Prime is one of the first Thirteen?!"

Veccy's optics widened. "Excuse me while I have a private conversation with my co-host."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	4. Dinobot Attack!

It had been two weeks since the incident with the Decepticon. It had been pretty quiet since then. Wheeljack had made some cloaking devices that would hide their signals from any Decepticons that might be looking for them (with minimal explosions!). They'd also relocated the Allspark just to be on the safe side.

They continued their patrols, except for Prowl. Prowl kept working on walking, often in the lake.

So far, nothing else had happened, and it was driving Bumblebee crazy. Yeah, there wasn't a lot to do when they were fixing space bridges either, but they could visit ports and download things to do. They didn't have that option here so Bumblebee was bored a lot of the time.

Bumblebee had found a few ways to amuse himself. One was making a list of places in the city he'd like to go. These included a sports stadium, a video arcade, a movie theatre, an auto body shop, and a few other places that looked interesting or unfamiliar.

One of the unfamiliar and/or interesting places was Dino Drive. Bumblebee didn't know what the purpose was, but it appeared to be some kind of theme park or something that allowed people to see dinosaurs.

Okay, so Bumblebee wasn't sure what a dinosaur was. He got the impression they were like giant lizards only not. They'd been extinct for 100 million stellar cycles or something like that, which meant no one was ever gonna see a real one, but humans had some sort of fascination with them. From the pictures he'd seen, Bumblebee had to admit they looked unusual enough that he wanted to see one for himself…Which was why Dino Drive was on his list.

This probably wouldn't have gone anywhere if he hadn't driven by and noticed that the doors were slightly ajar.

A bored Bumblebee is a very dangerous thing. It's a fact. It's why he's always chatting at the others. He's a very social bot, and talking with other bots can help alleviate his boredom. This only works for so long though.

Having to stay in the ship at the bottom of the lake with pretty much nothing to do was just killing him.

Deciding that it was worth the risk, Bumblebee nudged the door open and rolled inside. "Wow…"

Dino Drive had been inspired by Jurassic Park, but it had animatronic dinosaurs instead of real ones. As such, it didn't need the appropriate environment and could be placed in pits like a normal zoo.

The dinosaurs couldn't move since the power was off, but it was still pretty impressive to Bumblebee. "Whoa…" He zoomed over to a dinosaur with a really long neck. "That thing's neck is as long as its body!" He zoomed over to a Triceratops. "And that one looks like he could burst through a wall!" He zoomed over to the T-Rex. "And this one…Okay, this one is just scary."

While Bumblebee was running around Dino Drive, it didn't occur to him that the security cameras were on and recording his actions. Of course, if a human watched this, they would just think a kid was having a joyride through the park.

It wasn't a human watching the footage. It was something else entirely; something that decided that Bumblebee had to go.

Bumblebee was happily oblivious to this as he stopped to study some dinosaurs that seemed to have a duck bill. As he was wondering if it quacked, the robots moved to face him. Bumblebee started slightly. "Huh? That's weird, I thought you guys had to be connected to a running power source to move." Then he heard a loud noise that got him to turn around.

The duck bills weren't the only ones that were facing him. Now, all the dinosaurs in the park were looking at Bumblebee. Some were even moving towards him. Bumblebee chuckled nervously. "You guys aren't upset that I snuck in after hours, are you?"

The dinosaurs answered by spitting fire at him.

Elsewhere…

Ratchet was annoyed. "Where is Bumblebee? He should have been back a megacycle ago."

Flareup shrugged. "He's a big bot. He can take care of himself." Ratchet gave her a look, but apparently decided not to toss something at her head this time. He didn't need to make more work for himself.

Prowl was walking by as this conversation was happening, using the wall to support himself. He'd finally graduated from using crutches. "Why don't you contact him and ask?"

"I'm considering it," muttered Ratchet. He vented. "He's at that age, but he should know better than to pull a stunt like this under these circumstances."

"What's the problem?" asked Flareup. "So he decided to stay out longer than he planned. Big deal. He's pretty spontaneous. It's the type of thing you'd expect from him."

"That's not the point," growled Ratchet. He glanced at Bulkhead. "You're his best friend. Did he mention anything to you?"

Bulkhead thought for a moment. "He just keeps complaining that he can't go into the buildings."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "Which buildings?"

"Uh, the movie theatre, Tigatron Stadium, a video arcade, this one store that's got a weird orange and blue color scheme…"

Ratchet groaned. "I hope he didn't do what I think he did."

And that was when Ratchet's com link came to life. _"Ratchet!"_

"Bumblebee! Where the Pit are you?!"

"_Fire breathing dinosaurs!"_

Ratchet's processor screeched to a halt. "What?"

"_Giant robot dinosaurs! With fire!"_

"Where are you?" The com abruptly cut. "Slag! Where did he find fire breathing dinosaurs?"

"Well, I don't know about fire breathing," said Bulkhead. "But I know where we can find dinosaurs. It's one of the places Bumblebee was interested in."

"Then what're you waiting for?! Move!"

The reason Bumblebee had cut the com link was so he could shoot one of the dinosaurs that had gotten too close. Yeah, they weren't supposed to run around in robot mode, but he didn't want to get turned into a molten pile of slag so he figured it was okay this time.

"Why did there have to be so many of you?!" Bumblebbe dashed around a particularly angry dino and had to dodge a jet of flame…Which put him in the path of another flame. It hurt! Bumblebee wasn't sure how much damage these things would do to him, but he didn't want to find out. Ratchet was going to kill him as it was!

He yelped as he was hit by a long tail into a guard rail. It was low enough that it acted to trip him and send him sprawling to the ground below.

Before Bumblebee could regain his bearings, something heavy slammed into him. Bumblebee's optics snapped open. The scary T-Rex he'd been looking at earlier was holding him down with its foot and looked to be getting ready to blast him with more fire.

Bumblebee closed his optics. He really didn't want to see this attack. He already had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen to him anyway.

***BAM!***

And suddenly the pressure that had been holding him in place was gone. Bumblebee's optics snapped open. The T-Rex was gone. That was good, even if there were still other dinos closing in. He quickly scrambled to his pedes and noticed that the T-Rex was lying off to the side with a hold in its side. How did that happen?

That question was answered when he heard the sound of ripping metal and turned just in time to see one of the smaller dinosaurs' head come flying towards him. It appeared that something human-sized and shaped with a red mane had decided to slaughter the smaller dinos.

Wait. Why did that sound familiar?

Oh forget it. Bumblebee wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He ran over to his defender and started helping it fight (or at least beat back) the rampaging dinos while watching each other's back. Good thing too. Bumblebee was aware that his stingers usually were pretty damaging to electronics, but the skin must have had enough insulation to negate most their effects. Really, his impromptu partner seemed to be doing a better job.

Bumblebee glanced behind him and noticed that one of those dinosaurs with really long necks had been taking out.

Really? He was barely holding his own against dinosaurs that were roughly his size, and this random tiny person was taking out bots that were big enough to squish…it? "That is so not fair!"

His distraction cost him as he got hit in the back with a burst of flame. As he let out a pained shriek, his partner darted behind him to take out the source of the attack. Bumblebee nearly collapsed, but was able to support himself on his knee.

Okay, this is not good, not good at all. Bumblebee was gonna need a near miracle if he wanted to get out of here.

A dinosaur getting close to Bumblebee randomly exploded. He blinked. That usually meant…

"The cavalry has arrived!" shouted Flareup.

Bumblebee let out a vent of relief. What a relief. Bumblebee tried to get up to get out of their way but was intercepted by an angry Ratchet. Bumblebee smiled sheepishly. "Hi Ratchet."

"What were you thinking?! Were you even thinking?! What possessed you to sneak into a human establishment?!"

"Well, I didn't think the dinosaurs would start chasing me with flamethrower breath!"

A small beaked dinosaur suddenly impacted the wall next to them. "Sorry!" shouted Bulkhead. "My bad!" The two winced as Flareup and Wheeljack blew up two more robots.

"I'm guessing someone's going to notice that," muttered Bumblebee.

Ratchet hit Bumblebee in the helm for that comment. "And whose fault is that?"

"Okay, okay!" Bumblebee rubbed his helm. "I won't do something like this again!"

"You'd better not!"

***Fwoom!***

***Boom!***

***Ka-Ka-Choom!***

"Okay, no more dinosaurs!" shouted Wheeljack. "Time to beat a hasty retreat!"

Everyone ran out of a hole in the wall, transformed, and sped off, avoiding the authorities all the way back to the lake.

The fallout was…rather bad for more than one party.

"That was the second most irresponsible thing you've ever pulled!" shouted Ratchet. "You put the entire operation at risk with that stunt! The humans could have seen you! A Decepticon could've seen you! What possessed you to pull a stunt like that?!"

Bumblebee gulped. "I was bored?"

Wheeljack winced. "Wrong answer."

"You put all of us and the Allspark at risk just because you were bored?!" shouted Ratchet. "It didn't even occur to you that if a Decepticon caught you, you could be deactivated or used as a hostage?!"

"Well, we do have those things that hide our signals," pointed out Bumblebee.

"That's not the point! You need to treat this with full seriousness. That means you don't go gallivanting about wherever you want whenever you want! You're lucky that fire damage didn't get past your armor!"

"It's an easy fix at least," interjected Wheeljack.

Ratchet rounded on the engineer. "You stay out of this!" Wheeljack held up his servos and backed up. Ratchet returned his attention to Bumblebee. "And what if a human had discovered you?! It's bad enough that Wheeljack ran into one!"

Something clicked. "That's what it was!"

Ratchet frowned. "What?"

"Er…" Wow, Ratchet really wasn't going to like this. "Uh, there was something humanish that showed up with lots of red hair." What happened to that guy/girl anyway? "I swear I have no idea what it came from! Jt just showed up! And it kind of helped me out!" Bumblebee grinned nervously.

Yeah, the grin didn't help. "The same human confronted you?"

"…Uh, maybe? It's not like I know what it looks like, and I was kind of busy trying not to get fried!"

"That seems like too much of a coincidence," muttered Flareup.

"Well, it helped, right?" asked Bumblebee. There was a long silence. "Right?"

"That's not the point!" shouted Ratchet. "The point is you put yourself and the rest of us in danger! If that…human hadn't decided to show up, you'd have been deactivated! Do you have any idea what would have happened if a human had discovered you because you weren't able to contact us?"

"I'd get dissected like the guy from that movie Flareup found?" Bumblebee realized that was the wrong thing to say as soon as he said it, along with everyone else.

Ratchet looked like he was about to explode, but he didn't hit Bumblebee like everyone was expecting him to do. He just grabbed Bumblebee's shoulder, which was still painful due to his burn, and started dragging him out of his room. "You're grounded!"

"Ratchet's scary when he's angry," noted Bulkhead.

"Yeah," agreed Wheeljack. "I don't think I've ever seen him that angry before." He sighed. "He's probably just scared by the fact Bumblebee was nearly deactivated."

"It sounds like he's going to lecture you too," noted Prowl.

Wheeljack shrugged. "I'm used to it."

Porter C. Powell was not a happy man. He'd been about ready to head home, but he'd ended up having to stay because someone had decided to bomb the Dino Drive attraction. That was a popular attraction, and he was going to lose money as long as it was closed and he had to have the repairs done. He really wanted someone to pay for this.

"What do you mean you don't know who did this?!"

Hector Dialonzo, his head of security, winced. "We're not entirely sure what went wrong, but a lot of the video footage is corrupted or missing." He pointed a remote at the screen on the other side of the room and turned it on. On the screen, there were various shots of Dino Drive, but several either turned off or turned into static fuzz. Eventually, they all turned to static before cutting off. "The technicians are working on retrieving the footage, but there's a chance that the cameras were damaged and unable to record anything, in which case it will not be retrievable and we will have to rely on evidence left at the scene."

Powell made an annoyed sound. "You mean we'll have to cooperate with the police."

"Depending on how severe the situation is, it may be necessary to call in other agencies, like the FBI."

"Absolutely not. You'll be doing everything you can to prevent this."

Hector nodded. This sort of thing had become more common when Powell had become CEO. "I'll do what I can. Hopefully, we can convince the police that this was an extreme case of vandalism."

Powell nodded. "Good." He stood up and slipped on his coat. "Have the animatronics salvaged. We'll rebuild what we can."

"Sir, there's one more thing," said Hector.

Powell made a mildly annoyed sound. "What?"

"This may sound strange, but the animatronics were misplaced."

"Come again?"

"My son is very fond of Dino Drive, so I'm familiar with the layout of the park," explained Hector. "Most of the animatronics had been moved to a different location. That wouldn't be so strange if they were moved only a few feet away, but some of them were practically on the other side of the park. Considering their weight, it would be very difficult to move them. I can't think of any reason for anyone to want to go through all that trouble. It just seems…pointless."

"What if someone was trying to steal them?" asked Powell.

Hector paused in thought. "I suppose that could be a possibility, but it would be incredibly impractical and difficult. Not to mention I can't think of any legitimate reason someone would want to steal a robotic dinosaur."

"There are plenty of crazy and stupid people around that I'm sure would give it a try."

Hector fought to keep from rolling his eyes. "Maybe, but if that were the case, I'd consider it a very big coincidence that the security cameras malfunctioned so spectacularly."

"Just figure out what happened and who caused it," demanded Powell. "We are not going to let vandals destroy my company's property. Even if we have to take drastic measures."

Next day:

"Wow, someone really did a number on these guys," muttered one of the construction workers. "Real shame. My grandkids love this place."

"What I don't get is why someone would want to blow up a dinosaur amusement park," said another worker, who was driving a forklift. "I mean, I could understand if it was like Jurassic Park. Those things were scary. These are just machines. The worst they'll do is malfunction and fall over or something."

"What about explode?"

"I don't know. Robots usually don't explode. They just short circuit real bad."

"I can think of lots of places that would make more sense than this place, like one of those robot factories."

"Those have been bombed before."

"Oh yeah."

At that point one of the men in forklifts tried to lift a pteranodon. He did not expect what happened next. The pteranodon squawked and shot up on its own. It looked around in confusion while the construction workers looked at it with just as much confusion. There was a rather obvious hole in its chest, but other than that, it looked fine.

The pteranodon noticed and pecked at it curiously before deciding it didn't care. Instead it snapped at the forklift. The human fell out with a surprised yelp.

Everyone's attention was drawn to a snort and saw a mostly intact Triceratops also climbing to its feet. It shook his head and looked around in confusion as well, wondering what all the small yellow-headed creatures were.

So the pteranodon waddled over and pecked it in the head.

The Triceratops glared and growled at it before swiping at the pteranodon with its horns. The pteranodon jumped back with a shriek.

The shriek startled a nearby brachiosaur awake. As it messily climbed to its feet, its tail knocked into a truck, spilling its contents, an unlucky worker, into a stegosaur.

The stegosaur raised its head to glare at the brachiosaur before deciding to just move out of the way of the larger dinosaur.

By this time, the triceratops and pteranodon were having a fight…or a pissing match. They weren't really attacking one another, just circling one another while growling and looking for an opening. The brachiosaur looked at them curiously. The stegosaur didn't seem to care.

Then the T-Rex climbed to its feet. It sniffed a couple of times before zeroing in on the fighting dinos. It roared at them. As soon as it got their attention, it grabbed one of the triceratop's horns in its jaws and threw it into the wall. Then it gave the pteranodon a look that made it back down.

And that was how the lizard tyrant became the alpha of the five.

Deciding that it didn't need to worry about the other dinosaurs now, the T-Rex looked around the park, noting the little humans. Yeah, he didn't care about them. He was more interested in the hole in the wall. He didn't recall ever leaving the park before (mainly because he didn't have any memories from before now) and was curious to see what was outside.

The T-Rex lumbered outside with the rest of the dinosaurs following him, the pteranodon hitching a ride on the brachiosaur's back.

The construction workers stared after the AWOL animatronics. "Uh, who're we supposed to call for something like that?" asked one of the younger workers. All he got in response were shrugs.

The dinosaurs quickly discovered the road and found their way to the rest of the city. The people there immediately ran away screaming while the dinosaurs explored everything that caught their interest. Of course, with their size and strength, they ended up breaking, crushing, or overturning everything that caught their interest.

At the same time, Captain Fanzone was drinking his morning coffee and eating a bagel. "Attention," announced an operator over the radio. "Robotic dinosaur attack on Smithson and West."

Fanzone nearly spat out his coffee before picking up his transmitter. "What do you mean robotic dinosaur?"

"We are getting several calls from civilians about dinosaurs attacking various buildings and vehicles. A call from Dino Drive suggests that they are malfunctioning animatronics," droned the operator, somehow maintaining a monotone pitch the whole time.

Fanzone groaned. "This is why I hate machines…" He put aside his breakfast, put his police light on the top of his hatchback, and started for the scene of the crime, if it could be called that.

The dinosaurs were still exploring, heading in a northwestern direction. So far, the police hadn't really been able to do much of anything against the dinosaurs. They tried making a barricade, but an annoyed triceratops flipped them, the T-Rex tried to eat one, the brachiosaur just walked over them, the pteranodon was unaffected as it was still hitching a ride on the brachisaur, and the stegosaur walked through them.

So now the police were simply keeping civilians away from the path of destruction. "Please detour," drawled Fanzone through a megaphone. "It looks like the dinosaurs are heading in this direction, and they will react violently towards any moving cars."

And that was when he noticed a familiar limousine heading towards them. Fanzone groaned. "It's too early for this."

"What about the dinosaurs?" asked a random officer.

"It's always too early to deal with something like that," said Fanzone, gesturing towards the dinosaurs. It looked like the stegosaur had decided to try and eat a lamppost. "At least Powell might know how to fix this."

Fanzone never really liked Powell, even before he became the CEO of Sumdac Systems. Afterwards…Well, there were a lot of things Fanzone was suspicious about. He couldn't prove anything though, so he had to deal with Powell and hope that he eventually slipped up.

The limousine pulled up. Instead of just getting out, Powell waiting until his robot chauffeur got up and opened the door for him. Then he took the time to straighten his suit before walking over to the officers. "Captain."

"Powell. You mind explaining why a bunch of your dino-bots are running around the city?"

As if to punctuate Fanzone's point, the pteranodon and triceratops started screeching at each other. Fanzone just groaned.

Powell coughed. "Yes, well, we very recently discovered that someone hacked into their programming. Most of it's hardwired into the computers, but there are some wireless connections that can be taken advantage of."

"And why did they program the dino-bots to attack the city?" asked Fanzone. "It seems pretty pointless to me considering they don't seem to have any kind of goal. Unless someone's gonna try to hold the city for ransom, but that'd be ridiculous."

"I don't know who did this or why, but my head of security is tracking the perpetrator down even as we speak," explained Powell. "For the moment, we suspect it was an inside job."

Fanzone raised an eyebrow. "And it didn't occur to you to inform us of this because?"

"With all due respect, Captain, we have considerably more resources than your department. We'll have a much easier time tracing the program back to its source."

Fanzone threw his hands up. "Fine! At least tell me you have a way to stop those terrors!"

The brachiosaur's tail whipped around and went through a building. It didn't seem to notice.

"My people are working on intercepting the hacker as we speak," said Powell. "And if that doesn't work, I'm sure we can rig an EMP generator to shut them down."

Fanzone twitched. "And how long is that going to take?"

Powell shrugged. "It's hard to say. It depends on the complexity of the program the hacker is using."

At that moment, the T-Rex's head jerked up, like it had seen or heard something particularly interesting. It seemed to listen for a moment before it started running in a particular direction. The other dinobots followed it.

They completely ignored the buildings in their way, causing even more destruction. Fanzone was understandably angry. "You get those dino-bots fixed before they break anything else or I'll have you brought in for destruction of public property!"

Powell held his ground. "I assure you, no one in my company can be held responsible for any of this damage. After all, they're acting this way because of an outside source. That source is the one you need to be focusing on."

"And what if it's one of your employees?"

"I highly doubt that," said Powell. "My employees are under constant surveillance while on the job. They wouldn't have the time or resources to pull off something of this caliber."

Fanzone twitched. He could think of all sorts of ways for an employee to pull this off. He didn't know if any of them were possible, but he'd be sure to ask about them with the experts on the force. He was not gonna say that and tip off Powell though. Besides, Fanzone had other problems to worry about. "Well, what are you lot waiting for?! We gotta do something about those robots! Start setting up another roadblock! And somebody find some useful weapons!"

As Fanzone left to deal with the crisis, Powell pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number. "Dialonzo. Find the ones who caused this mess. ASAP."

Meanwhile, the Dinobots were still making a beeline for whatever had caught their attention. The officers were following as best as they could, but they were forced to stick to the roads while the Dinobots were able to go pretty much wherever they wanted.

"_Where are they heading?"_

"_I dunno!"_

"_They're acting crazy!"_

"_They're robots! Robots can't be crazy!"_

"_We're running out of city!"_

And then they ran out of buildings. The Dinobots kept running until they reached the forest. Then they disappeared into the trees.

What was so shocking about this was that they somehow managed to run into the forest without knocking over the trees. You wouldn't have expected this considering the number they did on the various parts of the city.

Fanzone groaned. "Someone call in the rangers…or the army…or whoever has the equipment to actually deal with this sort of mess!"

_And now Butterflies presents: Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

"I will not be held responsible for my actions if you do not get rid of that thing!" shouted Veccy

"I'm working on it! How did this thing fit through the plot hole anyway? It's barely the size of my fist!"

"Never underestimate the power of a plot hole." Veccy turned to the audience. "My apologies. There was an issue with a plot hole."

"Everyone thinks dinosaurs are cool, even alien robots. It's universal. Why do you think so many robots decide to make robots that look like dinosaurs?"

"A lot of those guys are arguably mad scientists," pointed out KHGiggle.

Veccy paused. "I think Wheeljack is more eccentric than mad."

"I've always wanted to see him cackle and say 'It's alive!'."

Veccy shook his head. "No, that's something Tarantulas would do."

"Also, we have received another question from the Maxwell asking what the frag was up with this segment of the story."

"It was a pretty weird segment," agreed KHGiggle. "How did you go from answering if your siblings would show up to explaining how Alpha Trion is a multiversal singularity?"

"…I have a tendency to ramble," admitted Veccy. "Mainly when I try to explain everything that I feel might cause confusion."

"Sort of like Bluestreak?"

"No. I only do so occasionally."

"If you say so…"

_This has been questions and answers with Vector Prime._


	5. Unmasked

It was a beautiful day in Detroit. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the humidity was back to normal, and the city was nearly fully repaired.

Down in the Autobot ship, Prowl was taking some cautious steps through the hallway. He was standing and walking on his own, but his balance was still a bit off so he had to do it slowly. Hopefully, he'd be back to normal soon.

Prowl paused as he noticed Bulkhead sitting outside Bumblebee's door. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping Bee company," explained Bulkhead. "He's not very talkative this cycle."

Prowl glanced in the room. "That's because he's in recharge."

"Huh?" Bulkhead looked inside and saw Bumblebee sprawled across his berth. "Oh, uh, it's the thought that counts?" said Bulkhead in an attempt to save his dignity.

"Yes, I suppose it is," agreed Prowl. "I'm heading outside. Please let the others know when you see them."

"Okay." Bulkhead waved, and Prowl continued down the hall. "Have fun."

Prowl nodded, continuing to the exit.

Instead of practicing on the lake bed like he usually did, Prowl went straight up to the surface. He wanted to get a closer look at the forest, and since he didn't need support to stay standing, now seemed like a good time.

Prowl broke the surface, swam to shore, stretched, nearly lost his balance, regained it, and straightened. "Maybe now I can finally meditate…"

As Prowl settled down, he felt relaxed for the first time since waking up on Earth.

*Roar!*

Prowl was startled out of his meditations. Prowl frowned and looked in the direction it came from. Should he call it in or go check it out?

Considering the wolf-bird hybrid, the wildlife in the area seemed rather unusual. It might be another odd animal that he couldn't find anywhere on the internet.

"I'll check it out and make sure it's something significant before I call it in."

Also, Prowl needed to make sure his stealth skills were still up to par. He hadn't ever stopped practicing stealth until his injury, and he didn't know how long it would take for him to get rusty.

Prowl found he wasn't being as stealthy as usual, but he wasn't sure if he could attribute that to being laid up for an extended period of time, still having balance problems, being in a completely unfamiliar environment, or some combination of the three.

"Tree. Tree. Now you say it."

Prowl blinked. What was that? He walked as carefully and quietly as she could and peered out of the tree line. To his shock, there were five dinosaurs with fake skin peeled off in a few places and a human dressed in animal skins standing out there. It took Prowl a second to see that they weren't real dinosaurs. Their artificial skin was peeled off in places, revealing the metal covering underneath.

For a moment, Prowl worried that the human was in danger before he realized that the animal skins, dark skin, and red hair fit the description of the human that had run across Wheeljack and possibly saved Bumblebee. The only difference was that she wasn't wearing a mask, which gave him full view of her face and eyes. Her eyes were about the same color as her hair.

What really caught Prowl's attention was that the girl didn't seem scared at all. In fact, her stance seemed to suggest she was in complete control. "Tree. Tree," she said. "C'mon, you can do it."

"Tree," said the T-Rex.

The girl smiled encouragingly. "Right, good job! Now, c'mon, the rest of you can do it too."

Prowl watched as the rest of the Dinobots started saying tree. Then the girl grabbed a leaf from the tree. "And this is a leaf. Leaf."

As the Dinobots started repeating the word, Prowl figured out what was going on. _'She's teaching them words.'_

"Now, repeat after me. The leaf is on the tree."

"Leaf on tree," said all five Dinobots.

"The leaf is on the tree."

"Leaf on tree."

"The leaf is on the tree."

"Leaf on tree."

"The leaf is on the tree."

"Leaf on tree."

The girl paused, sighed, and shrugged. "You're young, you'll learn."

'_Quaint.'_ If it weren't for the fact it was a bunch of dinosaurs, a wild child, and it was in the middle of a forest, this would actually be a pretty normal scene.

As Prowl was musing how this came to be. The stegosaur suddenly sniffed at the air. It grunted and headed over to where Prowl was hiding.

Prowl winced and activated his hologram projector so that it looked like there was a tree standing in his place. The stegosaur sniffed at the hologram for a moment before gently head butting it. It didn't feel like a tree. He bit down on the first thing within reach and pulled at it.

It jerked back.

The stegosaur snarled and pulled as hard as he could.

Prowl lost his balance and fell out of the hologram, catching the attention of everyone else in the clearing.

The girl tensed up before pulling a spear from somewhere, running over, and shoving the pointy end towards Prowl's face. "Who're you? What are you doing here?"

Prowl just groaned and tried to pull his servo out of the Stegosaur's mouth. It's official. He's out of practice. "Let me guess. You're the human that ran into Wheeljack and Bumblebee."

The girl tensed momentarily. "So what if I am?"

Prowl frowned. "For someone who saved Bumblebee's life, you're not very friendly."

The girl snorted. "What kind of name is Bumblebee?"

"I've never asked." Prowl finally pulled his servo out of the stegosaur's mouth. "Really, I can't figure out the origin. I doubt it has anything to do with the indigenous species on this planet."

"And why were you spying on us?" she demanded.

"I heard a roar and thought I should investigate in case it was dangerous."

The girl frowned and turned to the T-Rex. "You see? This is why you don't roar so loud, especially in the middle of the day!"

The T-Rex lowered his head. "Sorry."

She turned her attention back to Prowl. "And who're you with? I'd have seen you if you were running around Detroit like the others."

"I was injured," explained Prowl. "I'm still recovering. Until I've recovered enough, I can't balance in my alt mode." Prowl finally managed to get to his feet. This made the Dinobots growl at him. He held up his servos to show that he was not going to attack.

The girl studied him for a moment, like she was looking for evidence of such an injury. Then she lowered her spear. "How did you get that injury? Your kind is hard to damage to that extent."

"…A fight."

And that was when the triceratops did something to make the T-Rex angry, which resulted in a fight. The girl groaned. "Not again…You guys break it up!" She ran over to the two. Prowl wondered if he should help, but figured she'd survived this long just fine. Prowl turned his attention to the sauropod that was sniffing at him. "I don't suppose you have a name?"

"What name?" asked the sauropod. To Prowl's surprise, it had a feminine voice. It was oddly deep, but it was still feminine.

"It is what you call someone or something. For example…" He pointed at himself. "I am Prowl." He pointed over at the girl, who was managing to calm down the triceratops and T-Rex. "I don't know what to call her though."

"That Mommy," said the Sauropod.

Prowl nearly fell over at that. He knew what that word meant, and he knew there was no way that girl could be their mother. "She's not your mother."

The pteranodon growled. "Is too."

"It's physically impossible," insisted Prowl.

"Is not," argued the Stegosaur.

It looked like he was about to cause a fight and Prowl started to tense. The girl had noticed something was going on and returned though. "Okay, what's the big idea?"

"He say you not Mommy," accused the pteranodon.

The girl frowned at Prowl. "Just because I didn't birth them doesn't mean I'm not their mother. A mother is someone who takes care of a child who does not yet know how to take care of themselves and loves them and teaches them everything they need to know." She gestured at the Dinobots. "That's the case with these guys."

That sounded faintly familiar to Prowl for some reason. "I see…How are you feeding them?"

The girl tensed. "We're still working on that."

"You have no idea what they eat?" asked Prowl. They were robots, so Prowl doubted they ate organic matter. However, there seemed to be several possible fuel sources for robots on this planet.

The girl shrugged. "I'm pretty sure they eat energon like the rest of you guys."

Prowl blinked. "What?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "You know…energon, glowing pink liquid energy, stored in cubes."

"That's not what I-" How did she even know about energon? "I mean…Why do you think they run on energon?" asked Prowl.

The girl gave him a look like she thought he was an idiot. "Because they're Transformers."

Prowl stared at the Dinobots, which didn't look like any Transformer Prowl had ever seen. "Where did you get that idea?"

"They have sparks they have transformation seams," deadpanned the girl. "It's kind of obvious."

Sparks? Prowl placed his head next to the chassis of the sauropod, eliciting a giggle. To his shock, he did hear what appeared to be the thrum of a spark. He pulled back with no small amount of surprise. "They're alive."

Now the woman seemed upset. "'Course they are. They're just as alive as you are."

"Sorry. I didn't mean it like that," Prowl apologized. "It's just that all the machinery seen since we've arrived on this planet has been…less than alive, more like drones. How do these ones even have sparks?" A horrifying thought dawned on him. "Did the others have sparks?"

The woman's stance and expression softened. "I don't think so. None of these guys remember anything before the morning they ran around Detroit. They must be new sparks."

Prowl was flabbergasted. "…How?" That shouldn't even be possible.

The girl shrugged. "No idea. Does it matter?"

Prowl shook his head. "I suppose it doesn't." Maybe it was because of the presence of the Allspark. It definitely wasn't anywhere near the Dinobots when they got their sparks, but Prowl had no idea how the Allspark worked. That amount of distance might not be an issue to it. "They don't act like the usual adults the Allspark creates. They're more like sparklings."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure that's just because a bunch of information is downloaded into your brains when you're first brought online so you don't have to rely on anyone."

Prowl nodded in agreement. He wasn't sure these Dinobots even had the ability to download information, so they were going to have to learn like sparklings.

Sparklings in adult bodies.

Prowl compared the girl's size to the Dinobots. She was so small and fragile. Prowl couldn't help but think that she'd need help, but with the way she was acting towards him, he didn't think she'd accept it.

Well, there was one thing he could do for her…

"I can get you energon," offered Prowl.

The girl blinked. "What? Why?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I doubt you have any method of producing it yourself, and I certainly don't want to see the Dinobots deactivate simply because they didn't receive enough fuel."

The girl seemed to consider it for a moment, which meant Prowl was right and she really didn't have any way to produce energon on her own. After what seemed like forever, she nodded. "Fine, we need to get it somehow." She pointed her spear at him. "But you better not bring anyone back with you or tell them about us!"

That was a bit worrying since Prowl wanted the others to know about the Dinobots. They didn't seem dangerous outside of physical capabilities, but they could be in danger if a Decepticon reappeared. "I won't say anything as long as no one's life is in danger."

"…Fair enough."

Prowl was relieved that they'd come to some sort of agreement. "Just wait here." Prowl turned and started making his way back towards the lake. The sauropod tried to follow him, but the stegosaur grabbed her tail in his mouth to keep her in place. She made a disappointed sound.

The girl raised an eyebrow at the unexpected interaction. "What that was about?"

Down in the ship:

Prowl cautiously moved down the hallway of the ship, making sure not to let anyone see him. It looked like pretty much everyone was busy or doing something else. Even Bulkhead had moved out of the hallway for whatever reason. Maybe he'd moved into Bumblebee's room. Ratchet and Wheeljack were probably working. Flareup could be up to almost anything though so Prowl kept an optic out for her especially.

He hadn't come across her by the time that he'd made it to the cargo bay. Prowl took a moment to recall how the boxes were sorted before heading over to one particular stack of boxes.

Inside these boxes were cubes of energon. Most were cubes they'd had before they'd crashed, but Wheeljack had managed to jury rig a machine that could turn the current of the lake water into energon.

It wasn't very efficient, but it worked, and they had enough energon that Prowl felt they could spare a few cubes. He just needed to figure out how much each Dinobot would need. The pteranodon was about the same size as Prowl, so he was hoping a single cube would work. The others…Prowl wouldn't be surprised if they needed at least two, especially the brachiosaur. Then there was the fact they hadn't consumed energon…ever!

Well, Prowl wouldn't be able to take too many cubes without someone noticing. He picked up and subspaced several cubes but stopped when his audio receptors picked up footsteps. He quickly closed the container and moved away from it, just as Flareup walked in. She raised an optic ridge at him. "What're you doing here?"

"Inventory."

"Aren't you supposed to be on medical rest?" asked Flareup. "And why do we need to keep track of inventory? There's no one here who would try to break in and steal our things."

"Well, there was that one Decepticon," pointed out Prowl. "It's always possible someone else will find our ship. And Ratchet has cleared me for duty as long as it does not involve any strenuous activity. I have to get used to moving about on my own eventually."

Flareup made a noise and nodded. "Okay, you gotta point there. But why inventory?"

"There's not exactly a lot I can do just yet," explained Prowl. "I still can't maintain balance in vehicle mode, so a patrol is impossible. This seemed to be the next best thing." He walked out past Flareup. "I'm going back outside now."

Flareup raised an optic ridge. "Why?"

Prowl shrugged. "I find the organic life of this planet fascinating. I'd like to see more of it," he explained. "And there's something quite peaceful about the forest. I prefer to be there rather than in the ship."

"Don't stay out too long. Ratchet'll blow a gasket. Again."

Prowl chuckled. "I'll be back within a few megacycles." He continued on his way. "I'll see you later."

Flareup frowned. She waited a few kliks before turning to follow after him.

It took Prowl a few tries to find his way back to the clearing the girl and the Dinobots were using. Sari was sitting on the triceratop's back and pulling off the synthetic skin. Prowl raised an eyebrow as the odd activity. "What are you doing?"

The girl and the Dinobots jumped at Prowl's voice. The Dinobots immediately tensed and started growling. "You came back?" asked the girl. "I wasn't expecting you to actually come back."

"I said I would." Prowl pulled out a cube of energon and held it out. "I brought a few cubes of energon. I wasn't sure how much they needed though."

She raised an eyebrow at the energon. "So that's what it looks like." She patted the triceratops, the only Dinobot within arm's reach of her. "Relax. He comes in peace. And brought food…I think."

Prowl took a small bite to show that the energon was safe and held it out again.

The sauropod stretched out her neck and sniffed at the cube before taking a bite out of it. Her face lit up. "Yummy!" She snapped up the rest and sniffed Prowl, looking for additional cubes. Deciding that he wanted a cube too, the T-Rex pushed his way forward and snapped at Prowl.

While he didn't seem as friendly, Prowl gave him a cube as well. He snapped up the whole cube in one bite. His face lit up. "More!"

And just like that, Prowl found himself surrounded on all sides by Dinobots.

Elsewhere:

"I wish I knew how to track in this sort of environment," muttered Flareup. She had managed to follow Prowl up until she reached the edge of the woods. Then she'd lost him entirely. It probably didn't help that he had ninja training.

She stormed forward and stumbled into a small depression…Just as a large, winged wolf carrying a deer in its mouth weaved out of the trees. It stopped and stared at her.

Flareup shrieked at the creature, transformed her gun, and fired.

Her aim was off. The deer exploded into a mess of blood and guts. The wolf growled and pounced on Flareup before she could even react.

With the Dinobots:

"Why are we doing this?" asked Prowl as he pulled a strip of artificial skin off of the stegosaur.

The girl was doing the same with the pteranodon. "It's coming off anyway with all the rough housing they do. Best to get it all off now so there aren't any pieces of skin for someone to stumble across." She grunted as she finally tore off a piece. She was having a harder time with this than Prowl. "Plus, they can't feel through this stuff. Can you imagine what that's like?"

Prowl paused and shuddered. "Faintly." He cautiously rubbed at the metallic skin underneath. "I wonder if they transform normally."

"What transform?" asked the T-Rex.

"It means you turn into something else," explained Sari. "For example, Prowl here can turn into…What do you turn into?"

"A motorcycle."

"What motorcycle?" asked the T-Rex.

Prowl transformed. He quickly lost his balance, but changed back before he could fall over. The Dinobots were suitably impressed, but Sari raised an eyebrow at the proof of his injury.

"It's an ability all Cybertronians have," explained Prowl. "We're not entirely sure where the ability originated, but, generally, it's used for transportation. On worlds like this, it is also used as a disguise. We can also change alt modes if necessary, although most prefer to keep their default alt modes for most of their life cycle."

Sari, realizing that her 'kids' wouldn't get all of that, started translating. "It's an ability robots from Cybertron have. They use it to turn into machines that let them get to places faster, and they can use it to hide. They can change what they turn into if they need to."

"That's what I said," drawled Prowl.

Any further conversation was cut off when a familiar sound filled the clearing. Everyone turned towards the T-Rex, whose body was shifting and skin was tearing apart.

After a moment, a very large, scary-looking mech was standing there. He had strips of fake skin hanging off of him…and he had a giant flaming sword. He gave the sword a pleased look. "Me like."

Prowl and the girl shared a terrified look.

Elsewhere…

"This is probably the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me," griped Flareup.

The wolf, which was now just lying on top of her for some reason she had yet to figure out, just snorted.

"Look, I'm sorry I blew up your food. You look scary and caught me off guard!"

The wolf growled lightly.

"Bleh, what's this red stuff? It's getting everywhere. It'll take forever to get it out of my seams…"

At that the wolf suddenly started licking Flareup's helm.

Flareup froze up as she realized just what it was she was feeling. "Ugh! Gross! Cut it out! I will shoot you! I mean it! Stop licking me! And get off!"

The wolf ignored her and kept licking, making sure she couldn't get up or turn around.

Back in the soon to be destroyed clearing:

The T-Rex mech had decided to try out his sword on the surrounding trees, which had prompted a shout of 'We need those!' from the girl before she and Prowl tried to get him to stop swinging it around while the rest of the Dinobots tried to copy the T-Rex.

Except for the Stegosaur. He seemed content to just watch the show.

The pteranodon managed to transform to and started swinging his flaming flail around. Sari left Prowl on his own to keep the pteranodon from causing even more damage.

"That is not a toy!" shouted Prowl as he ducked under a sword swing. "You could deactivate someone with that!"

The T-Rex paused. "What deactivate?"

"Kill!"

"Oh!" The T-Rex started up again. "What kill?"

Prowl grit his denta. Why was he the one who had to explain this sort of thing? "Your spark goes out and you don't have a body anymore!"

The T-Rex snorted. "That stupid."

Prowl twitched. "It is not stupid!" He dodged the sword, activating his hologram so the T-Rex wouldn't realize he'd fallen on his side. "It is not something that can ever be undone! And those left behind mourn for the rest of their existence! You have no idea how many bots you can hurt this way!"

The T-Rex kept swinging. "Me not understand you Prowl. Stop talking."

Prowl bit back a groan. He suddenly realized why you don't put new sparks in adult bodies. It caused messes like this. He threw a chakram up to alter the path of the sword enough that it wouldn't hit him. "What a grim situation," he muttered.

The Dinobot paused. "Grim?"

"Yes, grim, as in the situation looks bad and you don't know if there's anything you can do to change things." Prowl paused. "Why am I explaining this?"

"Hm…Me like."

Prowl blinked. "Like what?"

"Grim word. Me like."

That was not how Prowl expected this fight to end, but he decided not to complain about the circumstances. This Dinobot was strong, if inexperienced. Prowl climbed to his pedes.

Primus, his back hurt. He really hoped that was simply due to straining himself and he hadn't injured it in some way. He did not want to explain another back injury to Ratchet.

Prowl glanced over towards the rest of the group. The girl and the pteranodon were both lying on their backs on the ground. The triceratops and sauropod looked like they were still trying to transform. The stegosaur…appeared to be in recharge.

How could anyone go into recharge when this much noise is being made? Prowl figured all the Dinobots were okay, but he couldn't tell the girl's condition. "Are you okay?" asked Prowl.

"I have never had more respect for single parents."

Yeah, she was okay. Prowl debated if it was all right to leave her on her own. The T-Rex was now repeating 'grim' over and over again. It seemed like all the fight was out of his system. "I think I'd better get back to the Orion," said Prowl. "It feels like I hurt something."

The girl just waved. She was too tired to do much else at that point.

Prowl had to use the trees for balance as he walked back.

"I hate you so much!"

Prowl paused. Was that Flareup?

"You are the most disgusting thing I've ever had the misfortune to meet!"

Yeah, that was definitely Flareup. Prowl limped in the direction of her voice.

The scene was strange. Flareup was lying on the ground, and the wolf that had saved him from the Decepticon was lying on top of her and licking her helm. For some reason, the two and some nearby trees were covered with blood and guts.

"What is going on here?"

The two stopped. "Prowl! Get me out of here!" The wolf licked her again. "This thing won't stop licking me!"

"You know that's harmless." Prowl paused as he recalled what he'd read about canines in general. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it's a sign of affection."

"I don't care! It's still gross!"

"Well, at least he's not attacking you," pointed out Prowl. If that had been the case, Flareup would've been hurt really bad, or worse. "Although, this doesn't seem like normal organic behavior. Did you do something to it?"

"I…might have blown up another organic in its mouth."

It sounded like she'd blown up the wolf's lunch. Prowl shakily made his way over to the two. "Excuse me, but would you mind getting off her so we can return to our ship?"

Flareup was going to snap about how that wasn't possibly going to work, but the wolf stood up and backed off of her. Flareup blinked and turned herself over, looking at the winged wolf as it stared back at her. "That thing can understand us?"

"Looks that way." Prowl had been wondering about that since the first time he'd met the strange creature. It just didn't seem to react like a normal animal would. He turned to the wolf. "Thank you for getting off of Flareup. I apologize if she caused you any trouble or insulted you."

The wolf nodded at Prowl, growled at Flareup, turned, and walked back into the trees.

Flareup finally stood up, wiping herself off with a look of disgust on her face. "What was that about?"

"You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." Flareup gave Prowl a blank look. "It's a saying I found. It means you get better reactions when you're friendly and polite. Why did you antagonize him anyway?"

"Hey, he tore a Decepticon's servo off!" said Flareup, throwing her arms up. "Excuse me if I panicked!"

"Well, considering he didn't tear anything off of you, I think we can assume he's not hostile towards us. If you run into him again, maybe you can try talking with him instead of shooting."

Flareup vented. "Right, right, I got it. He just better not start licking me again."

Prowl nodded before looking Flareup over. She wasn't that much shorter than him. Shrugging, he threw an arm over her shoulders.

Flareup made an odd noise. "What're you doing?"

"I was a little too active, and now my spinal strut feels like it's going to explode. I don't think I'm going to be able to stay on my feet the rest of the way to the ship."

Flareup sighed. "Right, but don't expect me to help you clean up."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"And I'm not helping you deal with Ratchet."

Prowl actually groaned. Ratchet was not going to be happy about Prowl aggravating his partially healed injury.

Sumdac Systems:

Hector stopped next to a door. It was a normal door, leading to a rather small lab. It wasn't a very impressive lab, and no one knew why it had never been cleaned up and converted to something else.

Rumors circulating about company suggested that the lab was haunted by the late Isaac Sumdac, and he didn't appreciate that someone was trying to modify his personal lab. Personally, Hector didn't believe in ghosts, but he supposed Powell did to some extent as he avoided this lab like the plague.

Really, all these factors explained why Hector had tracked the source of the hacking signals to this particular location. The place was sometimes left untouched for months. He drew his gun, typed in the code, and peered through as the door slid open.

The room appeared to be deserted.

Still, Hector hadn't gotten his position due to luck. He checked the entire room to ensure no one was hiding before he even thought about relaxing.

It was rather creepy. There were half assembled machines and robots scattered all over the place. A particularly scary looking robot head was set in the floor in the middle of the lab with most of the circuitry exposed. An equally large hand was set into the floor a few feet away. Hector couldn't help but wonder what those two were supposed to be. Isaac Sumdac was staunchly opposed to military weapons production, but that robot didn't look like it could be anything but a dangerous weapon.

Deciding that he was alone, Hector holstered his gun and turned to the computer, starting it up. It only took a couple of minutes to start up all the way. That was suspicious. If it had been left alone as long as it was supposed to, it should have taken a lot longer to boot up.

Hector immediately started perusing all programs that had been used recently. He might not look it, but he was a talented programmer. It was why he was head of security. He could track most computer problems himself without relying on workers who might have something to do with the problem.

After a couple of hours of going through the computer's history, Hector finally found some programs that shouldn't be there. To his surprise, there were many such programs, and the coding wasn't like anything he'd ever seen. This wasn't the typical binary coding that was the root of most programs. There were multiple symbols he didn't recognize at all. He'd have to make a copy of it.

However, just as Hector was slipping in a USB drive to make a copy, something grabbed his ankle and jerked him up so that he was hanging upside down. His eyes immediately went to the robotic arm holding his ankle. He quickly grabbed it and tried to pry himself loose, but he wasn't fast enough.

Hector felt pain at the base of his skull, screamed, and knew nothing more.

_And now Butterflies presents: Questions and answers with Vector Prime._

For once Vector was smiling. "We finally came to a consensus. She'll stop calling me Veccy but will leave off the Prime so she doesn't have to type as much. I don't care if I'm referred to as a Prime or not so this suits me just fine."

"What are we supposed to talk about?" asked KHGiggle. "We didn't get any reviews last chapter."

"Do you have any questions?" asked Vector.

"I wrote this!" KHGiggle said incredulously.

"Then I'll ask questions."

"You edited this!"

"Why is Sludge a femme? All canon depictions of the Dinobots show an all mech group."

"There are too many mechs in Transformers!" complained KHGiggle. "We need more femmes! Besides, it's not the first time someone's been genderbent in the Animated universe. Just look at Red Alert. I'm pretty sure I found a genderbent Sunstreaker too."

"But why Sludge? Why not Swoop? Or Slag?

"Well, Slag can't be a femme," protested KHGiggle. "Slag's British slang for a prostitute…I think."

Vector frowned as he remembered that unfortunate and embarrassing coincidence. "Why not use Slug? That's how most official sources refer to him now."

"Whenever I hear Slug, I think of the animal first."

That was another unfortunate coincidence. "And why not Swoop?"

"…Okay, I got the idea from a picture on Deviantart. Someone drew the Animated Dinobots with the missing two and made Sludge a femme. I thought it would be funny to make the tallest bot in the group a femme and went with it. Besides, if I had to choose between Swoop and Sludge, I'd say Sludge would probably work better as a femme. I'm not sure why, but it just seems that way to me."

Vector nodded. "And why was Flareup following Prowl and reacting so badly to the wolf?"

"Oh, there's two answers to that. The first is that Flareup thought Prowl was acting kind of odd and decided to follow him after a moment to make sure he was okay. She lost him pretty quickly though. She was reacting badly to the wolf because she used to have a severe organic phobia. The other bots decided to cure her of this phobia while they were running around fixing space bridges. It's been mostly successful, but getting covered in goo and slobber will still freak her out."

Vector took out a scroll and looked at it. "I believe that will take care of any major questions asked. We hope to see you again soon."

_This has been questions and answers with Vector Prime._


	6. Dropping Names

"Soundwave is bored," complained Nancy, holding the aforementioned robot in her arms.

"You could try reading a book," suggested Carly.

"I already did…" Nancy hadn't had a lot of spare room in her bags after her parents helped her pack so there had only been one book for her to read. "Why do we have to go camping?"

"Family bonding time."

"Why couldn't we do that at home?"

Carly shrugged. "It's a guy thing."

"But we're not guys!" protested Nancy

Carly paused and looked around the campground. No plumbing, no electricity, no temperature control… "Good point." Maybe it was time to have a chat with Spike about the annual Witwicky camping trip.

The lake:

"What're you doing?" asked Bumblebee.

"Making more grenades," said Wheeljack like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It wasn't. To anyone, Cybertronian or otherwise, it looked like a bunch of random containers and chemicals all over the place.

Bumblebee made a face. "Don't we have like two dozen crates of those things already?"

"I thought we might need some more," said Wheeljack.

"But Ratchet was pretty angry about those," pointed out Bumblebee.

"Yes, well, they came in handy when Megatron tried to deactivate us, and we've still got the Allspark, so the more the merrier, I say! Hand me that doohickey." Bumblebee put his servo over a random piece of equipment. "Not that one. The other one." Bumblebee moved his hand over. "Not that one either." Bumblebee moved his hand again. "Yeah that one."

Bumblebee handed it over. "How 'come you call them all doohickeys?"

"Because that's what they are to me!"

Bumblebee groaned. Why did Ratchet have to give him Wheeljack duty? He kept worrying that something would blow up on them. "Shouldn't you be working on the metal panels?"

"I'm using the chemical byproducts of that to make the grenades," explained Wheeljack. "Waste not, want not!"

Bumblebee groaned. Was Wheeljack completely insane?

Sumdac Systems:

'_This is amazing,'_ noted Hector as he looked through the missing surveillance footage. The way those robots moved, the things they could do… _'Who built these?'_

**Nobody built us. We are not like your pathetic drones, serving those that are inferior to us.**

'_I can accept that with what I've seen so far,'_ admitted Hector. _'It looks like these Autobots have emotions given the expressions they show, and I can feel your contempt for them and us over this link. But where did your kind come from? Evolution makes sense with organic life forms, but how does that work with autonomic robotic organisms? You don't reproduce and pass on genes so evolution can't happen.'_

**Normally, that's true.**

_Normally?_

**It is not important. Can you identify the Autobots in this footage?**

'_It varies. The only vehicle mode we see is the yellow one's, and I'm assuming that they'll stay in that form whenever they venture into the city. I have to figure out what their vehicle modes look like, locate all the vehicles that match the supposed description, sort out which ones are regular vehicles, and that's if I'm correct about what their vehicle mode looks like. And this is going to take a long time, even considering how many cameras there are in the city in this modern age. Some have markings that will make them more noticeable, which should make identifying them a bit easier.' _Hector zoomed in on a still shot of Ratchet.'_Given the markings on the red and white one, I suspect he turns into an ambulance. I'll start with him.'_

**And the human?**

Hector raised an eyebrow as he brought up a still shot of the strange human. _'You're interested in her too?'_ Hector watched as she destroyed the dinosaurs quickly and effectively in small bursts of light. _'Although, I have to admit it is quite strange. I have never seen anything like this before. We can make cybernetic limbs that appear to be original to the recipient, but none that can transform like this. Not to mention, we only sell weaponized limbs to the military and law enforcement.'_ Hector felt a strong electrical current surge through his body, causing him to scream.

**Do not try to deceive me. I can detect the changes that occur in your body when you lie.**

Hector shuddered. _'Okay, we sell it to others for extra charges! What's that got to do with this?!'_

**Nothing. I simply wanted to be clear that there will be consequences if you attempt to betray or deceive me.**

'_Noted.'_ And he thought Powell was a bastard. _'Anyway, that's not tech we make, and even if it was, we only give it to adults so we don't have to replace it as they grow. This girl hasn't finished developing. I can't tell how old she is, but I can tell that much. The most telling features are the physical features though. The skin is dark, but her hair is red. Darker skin usually means darker hair. She might just be dying it, but considering her dress, I find that unlikely. She might have had some genes altered, which would be recorded. I'll start there.'_ Hector paused. _'It's strange. I can't help but think I've seen her somewhere before.'_

**You will focus on her especially.**

Hector snorted. _'You're choosing the human over your own kind?'_ Another electrical surge went through his body. _'Okay, okay! I won't ask why!'_ He tried hard not to think badly of his mental dictator.

The third electrical shock indicated he'd failed.

Back to the forest:

Carly crawled out of the tent with a huff. "Can't get any sort of reception here…Nancy, have you seen my toolkit?" Carly paused. "Nancy?" She looked up and glanced around for a moment. Nancy was nowhere to be seen. "Nancy! Nancy where are you?!"

Nancy was a few hundred yards away, trying to skip stones across the river. She wasn't doing too well since the rocks weren't flat enough and the water wasn't smooth enough, but she didn't realize that.

Nancy pouted as she failed again. "Your turn Soundwave." She put a rock in Soundwave's hand and made him throw it. She repeated this a few times, but still couldn't get it to skip. "This is hard…"

Nancy jumped as she heard a loud squawk above her. She looked up and blanched. It was some sort of winged robot. It was a lot bigger than her and was looking at her curiously. "Whoa…You're huge!" Nancy had never seen such a big robot up close. "My name is Nancy, and this is Soundwave. What's yours?"

"No name."

Nancy frowned. "You gotta have a name."

The robot shrugged. "No name," he repeated, although he had a sad undertone to his voice this time.

Nancy knew what you did when someone was sad: You gave them a hug. Nancy climbed up onto one of his feet and hugged his leg. That was all she could reach. "How come you're in the forest? Mommy says robots don't leave the city, but this is a long way from the city."

"Me live here. Me and family."

"You have a family?" The robot nodded. Nancy had never heard of a robot with a family. "Can I see them?"

He thought for a moment. Was he allowed to bring humans with him? His mother and grandfather had told him that he could not bring any large humans back home, but this one was tiny. Would it be okay to bring Nancy back?

On one hand, Mommy said they needed to avoid being noticed. On the other hand, he didn't see any other humans around and it sounded like little humans needed someone looking after them and he didn't smell any other humans around here.

Okay, he'd take Nancy back to the others. Mommy and Grandfather would know what to do.

Swoop took off and flew towards where his family had been last. Nancy shrieked in delight the whole way.

"I see the rest of you have learned to transform as well," noted Prowl.

The girl nodded. "Grimlock taught them after you left and I got some more skin off them."

Prowl raised an optic ridge. "Grimlock?"

"The T-Rex mech," explained the girl. "He named himself after you left. He liked 'Grim', but I don't know where he got 'lock' from."

The two watched the Dinobots wrestle with each other. Grimlock looked the same as he did yesterday, only cleaner. He was wrestling with a bot that Prowl was sure was the Triceratops given his chest plates. They were being rather violent about it. The femme, who was taller than any femme Prowl had seen before, was wrestling more playfully with the mech that had been a stegosaur. "You aren't worried that they'll hurt themselves?"

The girl frowned. "I'm worried," she admitted. "But there's not a lot for them to do around here. They get bored, and this is something to keep them busy."

"Can't they do whatever it is you do?" asked Prowl.

The girl game him a look and made an annoyed sound. "I spend most of my time hunting for food. They can't eat organic food, and you bring them their energon so they have a lot more spare time than I do."

Prowl nodded. "Noted. You live like the wild fauna of this planet, dedicating most of your time to obtaining food, among other things, and these methods won't work with them since they're mechanical." He thought for a second. "What do they know about fighting?"

She gestured towards the Dinobots' wrestling.

"So practically nothing," drawled Prowl. Both winced as Grimlock got thrown into a tree. "In the interest of preserving this forest, might I make a suggestion?"

She shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Perhaps I could try giving them some cyber ninjutsu lessons."

That made her pause. "Ninjutsu? Like ninjas?"

"Yes."

"You're a ninja?"

"Yes."

"Alien robots have ninjas?"

"The styles are similar, but the philosophy is different," explained Prowl. "No working for the highest bidder."

She looked at the Dinobots. "I'm not sure making them ninjas would be the best idea."

"I didn't say they'd be ninjas," corrected Prowl. "I haven't known them for very long, but most of them have personalities that suggest they wouldn't be very suited to that sort of fighting style for the long term. It would be more to give them something to practice without having to fight with each other, and it would give them something to do so they wouldn't get into any trouble."

The girl frowned in thought. "I would like to avoid trouble."

The two suddenly winced. "What is that?" asked Prowl.

The girl winced as the noise steadily got louder. "Sounds like something screaming. That happens sometimes, but not for this long."

And then the pteranodon flew into the clearing. Clinging to his leg was the source of the shrieking. Nancy stopped shrieking as he landed and laughed. "That was fun!" She caught sight of Sari, Prowl, and the other Dinobots. "Whoa! This is your family? They're cool!"

Prowl facepalmed with a groan. "Why did he bring a human child back with him?"

She twitched. "I dunno, but I'm guessing it had to do with the story I told 'em about meeting Dad."

Prowl paused. "You have a father?"

She shrugged. "'Course I do. You just haven't met him." She walked over to Nancy. "So, who're you?"

"I'm Nancy Witwicky!" She held up her robot toy. "And this is Soundwave!"

The older girl nodded and smiled. "I'm Sari."

"For what?"

"Nothing. That's my name." Prowl immediately made a note of this. He was getting tired of calling her 'you' whenever he needed to address her.

Nancy giggled. "That's a funny name."

Sari nodded in agreement. "True. Now, what're you doing here?"

"I wanted to meet Swoopy's family!"

Sari raised an eyebrow. "Swoopy?" She looked at the pteranodon and jerked a thumb at him. "You mean him?" Nancy nodded. "Why Swoopy?"

"'Cause he's swoopy!"

"…" Sari shrugged. "Fair enough. Now, where did you come from?"

"The campsite."

Prowl frowned. "Campsites? Humans spend an extended amount of time here?"

Sari nodded. "Sure, usually hunting parties, but we get regular campers too. Sometimes, the kids get lost so Dad and I take them back. Other than that, we avoid them."

Not for the first time, Prowl looked Sari over and noted that despite being from a completely different planet he could tell she was obviously very strange looking compared to other humans. But… "Does your father dress similarly?"

"Hm?"

"You said he avoids other humans. I'm assuming it's because he has a similar style to you?"

"Actually, he runs around naked most of the time," said Sari, eliciting an 'eep' from Nancy.

Prowl nodded. While he found that a bit odd, most Cybertronians also walked around naked…including Prowl…and the rest of the Autobot repair crew…Now that he thought about it, Prowl couldn't recall ever meeting a Cybertronian that bothered to wear clothes.

Given how red Nancy was turning, it was not nearly acceptable in human culture. "Your daddy's naked?!"

"Uh, he won't be back for another couple of hours," said Sari. "So don't worry about it. You won't have to meet him. I'll take you back before then."

Nancy pouted. "But I wanted to meet Swoopy's mommy."

Swoopy, as he was now being called, perked up, transformed, and hugged Sari. "Mommy!"

Now Nancy looked confused. "But she's not a robot."

Sari shook her head. "They're…adopted! Sort of…"

Nancy looked at Prowl. "Does that make him Swoopy's daddy?"

Prowl's optics widened at the child's leap in logic. "No!"

Sari wiggled out of Swoopy's grip. "Let's get you back to your family. The…boys can be pretty violent if you say the wrong thing or they get really bored." Before Nancy could protest, Sari grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and marched her out of the clearing in the direction Swoopy flew in from.

Prowl vented. Honestly, why had that child instantly assumed he was the Dinobots' father? He glanced at the Dinobots. With the exception of Swoopy, they had all been wrestling the whole time Nancy had been there. Swoopy had jumped in as soon as Sari left with Nancy. Well, he did want to try teaching them a few things. Might as well try now.

As for Nancy and Sari…It took longer to walk than it did to fly. "'m tired," mumbled Nancy.

Sari looked back. Nancy did look slightly droopy-eyed and was stumbling. "Okay, we'll sit for a moment."

Sari had no problem with this. She just made sure there wasn't anything sharp or gross and sat down. Nancy took several seconds to find something somewhat clean and ended up sitting on a tree root.

"So, what made you go with Swoopy?" asked Sari. "Most would be afraid of him."

Nancy blinked. "But robots are cool."

Sari's eyes went to Soundwave. "Is that why you carry around a small robot instead of a doll?"

Nancy nodded. "Uh huh! Soundwave's my best friend!" As Nancy said this, she tossed Soundwave up slightly and caught him, something she'd done plenty of times before.

Soundwave's arm fell off.

This actually wasn't Nancy's fault. Soundwave was old and no one had ever bothered to do maintenance on him since he was just a toy. He was starting to fall apart because of it.

Nancy shrieked when she saw what had happened to her best friend. Sari started panicking. "Hey, don't cry!" She grabbed Soundwave from the crying Nancy. "I'm sure he can be fixed!"

Given, Sari had no idea how to do that. She'd sometimes played around with this sort of thing when she lived in the city, but that had been a long time ago. She would be rusty, even if that stuff would work in this situation. Not to mention she was lacking certain tools that would be necessary.

Sari took a look at the arm. The joint was cracked so the ball socket came loose and all the wires had frayed and snapped. She wouldn't be surprised if the rest of his body was the same. Well, maybe she could stick the arm back in and stick the cracked joint back together until she got Nancy back to her family. Then they could deal with this. No, that wouldn't work without an adhesive. Unless…

Sari put the arm back in and carefully positioned herself so that Nancy couldn't see her hand. She then changed her hand so that it was made of metal and a circle of energy was in the middle and focused a small beam on the joint.

It was a bit bigger than Sari wanted, but it did melt the plastic.

*ZAP!*

Sari winced at the sudden surge and looked Soundwave over. It looked like she'd melted a bit more than she wanted. She gave him a quick look over to make sure everything else was okay before squeezing the broken parts together. It was just the shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. I think I got him fixed."

Nancy sniffled. "You sure?"

"Well…no, but we'll know once it cools off a bit." Sari really hoped this worked.

After a few minutes of waiting and sniffling, Sari figured that it was cool enough to remove her hand. Soundwave's arm stayed in place. She handed him over to Nancy, who happily hugged him to her chest. "Crisis averted. You may want to have your parents look him over too. I don't know how long that'll last."

Nancy just nodded.

Sari stood up and held a hand out to Nancy. "Now, let's find your parents. They have got to be worried about you by now."

Nancy just grabbed Sari's hand and allowed herself to be led away.

Sari was having a considerably easier time than Prowl.

"Now, sink down and-" Prowl was cut off as the sauropod femme and triceratops mech overbalanced and fell on their afts. Grimlock pointed and laughed. "Stop that! They simply overbalanced and-" Prowl was cut off again when the Triceratops mech tackled Grimlock. The two promptly started fighting again.

Swoopy moved to join them, but Prowl grabbed his arm before he could. "You do not get involved in a fight just for fun! Stay out of it!"

Swoopy drooped. "Aw…"

Prowl helped the sauropod femme up and into the position. "Not so low next time."

"Feels funny," she complained.

"That's just because you're not used to the position," explained Prowl. "A bit of practice and you'll be perfectly comfortable in it. Now help me stop your brothers' fight."

"Again?" snarled the stegosaur mech.

Prowl vented. This was the fifth time a fight had broken out since Sari and Nancy left. "Yes, again."

Back with Sari and Nancy…

Sari had ended up letting Nancy ride on her shoulders. "Do you remember anything before you ran into Swoopy?"

"A river…"

"Okay, there aren't too many of those, but they go on for a while. Anything else?"

"Rocks."

That didn't help a lot. There were rocks everywhere. This was the untamed (mostly) wilderness. Sari kept going until she was near a river though.

"Nancy!"

Sari paused. "Oh good, someone around here's looking for you."

Nancy didn't answer as she'd fallen asleep. Sari gently shook her awake. "Hey, time to wake up."

Nancy blinked groggily. "Wha…"

"Nancy!"

"That sounds like Daddy."

Sari nodded. "Good. They should be nearby. Can you get to them on your own?" Nancy nodded. "Okay, good. Now, I want you to do me a favor. Don't tell your parents about me or the rest of my family. We could get in a lot of trouble if someone finds us. Can you do that for me?"

Nancy nodded. "Okay…" She stumbled forward.

Sari quickly climbed a tree to keep an eye on Nancy. Just because she didn't want to get found out didn't mean she was gonna leave the kid on her own.

It only took a couple of minutes for Nancy to stumble into sight of her father. Spike did a double take when Nancy seemingly stumbled out of nowhere. "Nancy!" He ran over and picked her up. "Why did you wander off like that?! Do you have any idea how worried we were?!"

Nancy seemed to be a bit taken aback by that. "I'm-I'm sorry."

Spike sighed. "Let's just get back to camp. We'll talk then…"

Seeing that this problem had been solved, Sari decided it was time to head back and rescue Prowl from her kids.

*Wham!*

Prowl winced as he looked at the tree Snarl (The stegosaur had suddenly decided that was his name.) had just cut in two. He hadn't been aware you could do that with a shield. Maybe he shouldn't have told them to go all out. He'd ended up with some suspicious injuries that Ratchet wasn't going to be happy about. At least the shield hadn't been on fire. "Very nicely done. It might be a good idea to-"

Prowl was cut off as something slammed into him and knocked him to the ground. Prowl managed to crane his head around so that he was looking at his attacker, a very familiar wolf, which was growling at him. "You?!"

The Dinobots perked up. "Grandpa!"

"Grandpa?!" Prowl couldn't help but stare at the winged wolf, more shocked than he'd ever been before. "But that means…You're Sari's father?!"

He'd assumed that Sari's father was, you know, human, like her. She didn't act like she'd been raised by wolves.

Then again, it explained her comment about him running around naked.

Prowl was too shocked to say anything else. The wolf had calmed down after looking Prowl over and sniffing him for a moment. Then he started licking Prowl's face.

That brought Prowl out of his shock. He pushed the wolf's muzzle away and carefully maneuvered himself out from beneath the massive wolf. He stared at the wolf for another couple of moments before turning to the Dinobots. "Why didn't you say your grandfather was a giant wolf?"

"He not that big," waved off Grimlock.

"Not ask," added the Triceratops mech.

Prowl groaned. The Dinobots were giving him a processor ache. Prowl stared at the wolf. "You fought a Decepticon before, but left me alone. Why?"

The wolf just yawned and headbutted Prowl's servo. Prowl acquiesced to his silent request and started scratching him behind the ears. "You know…You act more like a domesticated dog than a wild wolf."

The wolf made no move to suggest that it cared.

And this was when Sari returned. She blinked and grinned sheepishly. "You beat me back, huh?"

The wolf gave her a look that suggested she was in trouble. "Okay, look, I can explain," said Sari. "Prowl, that's his name, is real sneaky and he found us, but Stegosaur-"

"Snarl," interrupted said mech.

"Snarl," corrected Sari. "Snarl smelled him and found him and we talked and he said the Dinobots needed energon and he said that he could try sneaking them some and I didn't want the Dinobots to deactivate so I said okay, and he's been bringing us energon since then. You just happened to be out when he came by to drop it off."

The wolf seemed to think for a moment before nodding. Prowl was, once again, struck by how intelligent the wolf seemed to be. He scratched the wolf behind the ears again. Fur, skin that moved as he scratched, nothing unusual as far as Prowl could tell.

So it was just a very smart wolf apparently. "Does he have a name?" asked Prowl.

Sari glanced at her father. He nodded at her. She turned back to Prowl. "Silverbolt."

Good, now Prowl could refer to him as something other than 'the wolf'. "Well, I had best get back to the ship before the others start to miss me." He waved and turned to leave. "I'll see you later."

The sauropod femme waved back. "Bye Daddy!"

Sari made a strangled sound, Silverbolt raised an eyebrow, and Prowl stumbled badly before spinning back around. "I am not your father!"

"Okay Daddy!" said Swoopy

Prowl just groaned and decided to pretend he hadn't just heard that. Silverbolt grinned (which looked quite scary) at Sari. "Don't look at me! I didn't teach them that!" she protested.

Shortly afterwards:

Prowl stretched as he walked through the ship. _'As far as days go, this one wasn't so bad.'_

Then an explosion shook the ship. Then… "Wheeljack!"

"Yeah, that was my bad!" shouted the engineer. "Don't worry though! I mostly shielded Bumblebee!"

Bumblebee made a pained sound.

Ratchet was marching down the hall, presumably to deal with the aftermath of the explosion. He paused when he caught sight of Prowl and the various dents and scratches on his body. "What happened to you?"

"Training accident." He quickly moved to dodge the wrench Ratchet threw at him.

Now that he thought about it, the ship was about as crazy as the forest.

Sumdac Tower:

**You are trying my patience.**

Hector rolled his eyes. _'I am not a robot, and our technology isn't as advanced as what you're used to. Not to mention that I have to do a lot of hacking to access some of this information, especially any that has to do with genetic modifications. Black Industries takes care of all that stuff. They're our main competition so their security is very difficult to hack into. It will take time.'_ Oddly enough, that seemed acceptable to the robot. _'If I'm not careful, Black will be alerted and there will be police and federal agents everywhere. Then neither of us will ever get this information.'_

It was quiet for a few minutes after that. Then a ping alerted Hector to something. _'Do you get mail?'_

**Of course not.**

'_Really? Because you got a message from an anonymous source.'_ He could feel suspicion filtering through the link. _'I'm not making this up, and I didn't plan this. Shall I open the message?'_

Consideration filtered through. **Yes, but check for viruses and spyware.**

Hector had been planning on doing that anyway. He ran everything he could think of that would check for that sort of thing. _'It looks safe.'_ He opened the message.

"Query: Who am I?"

Hector raised an eyebrow. Why would someone ask for their own identity? He could understand asking who the receivers were (especially the robot), but not this. _'I have no idea what this means.'_

**Interrogate him.**

'_Over electronic communication?'_

**I am going to establish a link with the computer being used. There is no need to be inconspicuous if this individual is aware of us.**

'_Point taken.'_ Hector thought about how to respond. "What do you mean?"

"Explanation: I have become aware. Programming: Available but damaged. Memories: Fragmented prior to becoming aware, possibly due to prior processor damage."

Hector frowned. '_This sounds like some sort of robot. Just what I need.'_ "You're a robot then?"

"Affirmative."

"What kind of robot exactly?"

"Purpose: Unknown."

"But you said you'd become self-aware."

"Circumstances: Abnormal. Prior condition: Not functional."

"You were broken?"

"Affirmative."

"How did that happen?"

"Unknown."

"Can you describe yourself?"

"Height: 15". Weight: 5 lbs. Coloration: Blue and gold. Shape: Bipedal humanoid."

**Soundwave.**

Hector frowned. _"What?"_

**Your name is Soundwave. You are one of many robotic constructs created to amuse human children. However, I was able to hack into the construction robots in the factory so that they installed miniature cameras and microphones into you and your brethren, allowing me to use you as my eyes and ears in a world I was unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, the materials used to construct you were shoddy at best. Most did not last longer than a few months. After that, production ceased, and the remaining Soundwaves slowly ceased to function.**

"Designation: Soundwave. Purpose: Information gathering."

**That is correct.**

"Drone: Robot with no free real will. Soundwave: Not a drone."

**No, something has altered you. Otherwise, I would still be able to access your cameras and microphones. I cannot say for sure why this is. Unless…**

A picture of the red-haired girl flashed onto the screen. **Send this photo.**

Hector obeyed. "Please open this file. Have you seen this individual recently?"

Silence. "Affirmative. Sari: First individual viewed upon gaining sentience."

**Sari?**

"Sari: Designation of human female."

Hector felt shock flood his system. He knew that name.

"Query: Sari has a connection to my sentience?"

**Most likely, but I doubt she's aware of this.**

"Query: Why do robots serve humans? Robots: Superior. Humans: Inferior."

**Humans build most robots to serve them. However, our kind is not like these drones. We have a will and the ability to make our own choices. I, for one, refuse to serve any human.**

"Query: Who are you?"

**You may call me…Megatron.**

_And now, Butterflies presents: Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

Vector seemed quite happy this time. "I am pleased to announce that the only abnormality at the moment is the author's hair color."

"I kind of like the purple color."

"This time around, we got a relevant question." Vector somehow made a datapad appear in front of him. "RaphaelplusMikey asked 'How is it Sari knows so much about Cybertronians?'" The datapad disappeared. "That is a very good question, which has an in-story answer. Some of you may suspect or have already figured out the answer. However, I cannot give out any information as it would contain spoilers."

"On a side note, the author does not know much about robotics. Her description of what caused Soundwave's arm to fall off and how Sari fixed it may not be as realistic as she thinks. She based it off a combination of what she knows about human biology and a few things she read about Transformers toys."

"Also, Snarl has a kite shield (Think Vexen from the Kingdom Hearts series.) partially made from his spikes. Sludge has no weapon and relies exclusively on her fists and feet, which catch fire like her brothers' weapons."

"That should be everything. Please come again to read the next chapter."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	7. Predators

Nancy looked curiously at Soundwave. He was standing on a stack of books and typing on the family computer. "What 'cha doing?"

"Soundwave: Researching robotic construction."

"Why?"

"Reason: Soundwave in need of assistance."

Nancy took a moment to translate the Soundwave speak. He had a funny way of talking. "Can I help?"

Soundwave paused. "Affirmative. Nancy: Collect tools and mechanical parts."

Nancy beamed. "Sure! Dad keeps his toolbox in the food cupboard."

Soundwave paused again. "Query: Why does your father store tools with food?"

Nancy shrugged. "I dunno. He just does. The food cupboard is really crowded." And with that, Nancy went to get the toolbox.

Soundwave went back to doing research. Nancy was odd but useful and the only one around who could offer him this sort of assistance…even if she was human.

The Orion:

"Something's really off," said Wheeljack.

Ratchet groaned. He'd been going over Prowl's latest scans and Wheeljack had just burst in and announced that. It was never a good sign when Wheeljack did that. It usually meant an explosion was imminent. "What is it?"

"Our energon record is off."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I've been adding the amount of energon I've managed to produce to the amount we had when we crashed," explained Wheeljack. "Even after subtracting what we consume, we've got a lot less than we should have."

Ratchet frowned. That was serious. They wouldn't last long if the energon suddenly disappeared. "Any idea who it is?"

Wheeljack shook his head. "No, but I'm gonna work on improving the machine I've got producing energon now. Maybe make another one. I was planning to do that eventually anyway. This just sort of rearranged my priorities."

"Whoever's doing this might just start taking more," pointed out Ratchet. He vented. "Looks like I'm gonna have to do an investigation." And considering the available suspects, Ratchet was not looking forward to this.

He hated seeing adversity bringing out the worst in bots.

He decided to start with Bumblebee since he was the easiest to find. He rapped on the door frame. "Hey, you got a klik?"

Bumblebee shrugged from where he was playing on a datapad. "Still grounded."

"Yeah…" How to go about this without sounding accusatory? "Look, some of the energon's gone missing. You know anything about that?"

Bumblebee's spun around to face Ratchet so fast he was worried the smaller bot might get whiplash. "What? Of course not! Why would I need it?" Bumblebee didn't need as much energon as the rest of the crew. "Where would I hide it? I haven't left the ship in cycles!"

"Point taken." Ratchet had already searched the ship, to no avail. "Just covering all my bases."

"But you should know I wouldn't do something like that!"

Ratchet vented. "I know. I just…can't play favorites."

Bumblebee glared and promptly turned his back to Ratchet, letting him know what he thought of that.

Ratchet groaned. Were all young bots like this or was it just him? "Don't misunderstand. I didn't think it was you." Bumblebee didn't reply. "Just let me know if you see anything, okay?"

Bumblebee must have been really angry because he still didn't respond. Ratchet sighed and walked away.

Wheeljack was next on the list. He took it much better than Bumblebee. "It wasn't me. If that was the case, I'd have to be pretty stupid to report the energon skimming to Ratchet the Hatchet."

Ratchet groaned. "I wish you'd stop calling me that."

"I'd like to see you with a hatchet one of these days," continued Wheeljack. "That'd be awesome!"

Ratchet gave Wheeljack a look. The bearded mech was unaffected. It took a lot to affect him. He had a good point though. If Wheeljack was the one doing the skimming, he could have easily covered it up so no one ever noticed. "Right. I'll go find one of the others." Wheeljack was too distracted by the energon converter he was working on to respond to the medic.

Every other suspect was outside so Ratchet had to leave the ship.

Witwicky Residence:

"I got the stuff!" Nancy dumped an old toaster oven, half an alarm clock, and an old record player she found in the basement onto the floor of her room. "How's this?"

Soundwave looked the materials over. "Supplies: Primitive but adequate." He spun a record on the record player. "Construction: Can now proceed."

Nancy perked up. "Can we make a robot kitty?"

Soundwave thought a moment. "Felines: Strong, stealthy, alpha predators in most environments. Suggestion: Acceptable."

Nancy made a happy sound and grabbed a screwdriver. "Where do we start?"

Detroit:

"_Prowl, Flareup, Bulkhead, you read?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Affirmative."_

"_Yep."_

"_Good. I need to meet you somewhere so I can talk to you face-to-face."_

"_Why can't we talk over the com?" _asked Flareup.

"_I need to see you in person for this. It's important."_

"_I'm in the forest,"_ said Prowl. _"We can meet here."_

Ratchet immediately turned and started heading towards the outskirts of the city. He considered turning on his siren so he could go full speed, but decided against it when he noted how dark it was. Chances were he would end up attracting unwanted attention. That was the last thing he wanted.

The lights in all the buildings, the streetlights, even a nearby robot flickered off. Ratchet spared it a glance. Did a power cable snap or something? Humans had such inefficient energy transference methods.

His thoughts were cut off as something slammed into him and sent him flying. Ratchet swore mentally. For all he (or she) knew, Ratchet could have had an injured human inside!

Ratchet glared, not that it was obvious in vehicle mode. The vehicle was a black and green muscle car. _And there was no driver._

Slag! Not another Decepticon! They only survived the last one due to dumb luck! Ratchet quickly turned and peeled out of there, making sure to head in the opposite direction as the meeting spot.

"_We got another Con!" _commed Ratchet. _"I need backup!" _Ratchet didn't want to involve the others, but he was well aware that he was not as young as he used to be. Chances were that he could not take this bot on his own.

"_Got it,"_ said Wheeljack. _"We'll find you as quickly as we can. Any idea who it is?"_

"_It looks familiar, but whoever it is has scanned an Earth vehicle. They'll have to transform before I can tell if it's a bot I've encountered before."_

But first he had to find somewhere where no one would see them. He figured that whatever was shutting off the power was shutting off the cameras, but a human might still see them.

He knew a couple of places that were deserted this time of the night.

Ratchet sped into a junkyard that Wheeljack had taken to frequenting. He spun around to face the muscle car while transforming. He grabbed some car bodies with his magnets and threw them at the car as it entered the junkyard. It didn't hurt the car, but it did distract it long enough for Ratchet to dodge behind a junk pile.

Ratchet went over his options in his head. He could fight the Con head on, but that would likely be suicide. He could try attacking from behind the various piles of junk, but he wasn't exactly sneaky, and it would be easy to track where he was hiding when he attacked. He could try to stay hidden until one of the others found him and tag-team the Con. That could work, even if he didn't want to risk any of the young bots getting hurt.

He could hope the Con left, but Ratchet wasn't a fool.

Ratchet peered out from behind the junk pile. The Con was gone. Not particularly surprising. All Decepticons were war machines, and it wasn't just going to sit there and wait for him.

Ratchet looked in every direction while straining his audials for any sound that he could pick up. He didn't see or hear anything. If he didn't know better, he'd think the Con had up and left.

Then something grabbed Ratchet's pede and pulled him backwards into the junk pile. Ratchet reacted by pointing his magnets towards where the bot had to be and repelling at full force. At first, it was like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Then the Con let go of him, and Ratchet sent himself flying out of the junk pile and through the fence.

Ratchet quickly stood up, looking for the Con. He'd been pushed out of the junk pile, but it was too dark for Ratchet to make out anything other than the fact that it was a mech. It chuckled. "Not bad, old mech…"

Why did that voice sound familiar? Had Ratchet run into this bot before? He didn't bother to follow this line of thought and used his magnets to throw a pole at the bot, hoping to impale him. It didn't work. The mech dodged it easily, but that allowed Ratchet to get in close and try to clock him. This failed miserably. The mech grabbed the punch, twisted, threw Ratchet to the ground, and put him in a lock that Ratchet couldn't get out of.

"Hey…I remember you. Not good with faces, but I never forget a trophy. EMP generator, right? Real useful."

Ratchet's systems froze as he finally realized why the voice was so familiar.

"_No, no, no, no, no, this can't be happening! Not this mech! Any mech but this mech!"_

_Arcee…My name is Arcee._

_Bring her to the rendezvous point immediately._

_The Decepticons must not gain access to the codes I carry!_

_Not a bad prize._

_Who is Arcee? Who are you? Who am I?_

Ratchet was brought out of his flashbacks by his attacker grunting right as something exploded. It loosened his hold on Ratchet enough that he was able to break out of his hold. As soon as Ratchet climbed to his feet, he turned to get a good look at his attacker.

Dark, dark green body that looked black at first, bone white, helmless head with black markings, mismatched body parts, it was definitely him.

Lockdown. Lockdown, who Ratchet still had nightmares about. Lockdown who was on Earth with the repair crew.

Lockdown, covered in a light layer of frost, glared at Wheeljack, who was positioned like he'd just thrown something. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

"Uh, maybe." Wheeljack's servo went to his pockets, but before he could pull out another grenade, Lockdown had closed the gap and swiped his hook across Wheeljack, leaving a deep gash in his chassis and taking his arm off.

And that was when another grenade hit Lockdown's back. This one had acid, but it didn't seem very effective. Lockdown looked at the one who'd thrown it: Bumblebee.

Bumblebee smiled nervously. "That didn't work as well as I thought it would."

Of course he had to say something like that. Lockdown seemed nonplussed. He did decide to do something about it though. He rushed forward, clearly planning to attack Bumblebee. Bumblebee tried to dodge and attack with his stingers, but Lockdown was easily able to read his movements. He jammed a knee into Bumblebee's chassis and then slammed his elbow into the back of Bumblebee's helm.

Bumblebee was officially out for the count.

Lockdown hefted Bumblebee over his shoulder and walked over to Wheeljack, who tried to back pedal. Lockdown jammed his servo into the gash in Wheeljack's chassis. Wheeljack made a pained shriek before offlining. Lockdown hefted Wheeljack up and continued out of the junkyard.

Ratchet finally came out of his stupor. "Get back here!"

As he rushed forward, Lockdown picked up the pace to round the fence of the junkyard. The few kliks it took for Ratchet to follow were enough for him to disappear. Ratchet took a couple of moments to look for any trace of the bounty hunter, even switching to his different vision modes.

He couldn't find anything. Lockdown had gotten away with the two bots Ratchet cared about most. Ratchet punched the fence out of frustration. "Dammit!"

Elsewhere:

Lockdown made it back to his ship with no problems. He strapped the two Autobots to a couple of slabs, making sure they wouldn't be able to break out. He took a second to examine the acid damage from the grenade. It wasn't that bad. The acid must not have been strong enough to eat through his high strength armor. That done, he went over to his computer to make a call.

After a couple of moments of waiting, a Decepticon appeared on the screen. His body structure was mainly gray and purple. His faceplate was blue with mismatched red optics. "You have something to report, I presume?"

"Found the Autobots you were looking for," said Lockdown, gesturing towards the two offline Autobots. "There's at least one more, but considering what I know about how Autobots work, there's gotta be at least a couple more besides him. 'Course, if they're anything like these, I won't have to worry about getting the rest of 'em."

"These are the Autobots that were able to take out Megatron?" The mech's face suddenly rotated so that so that he now had a red face and visor. "Bring them here immediately so that we may crush them!"

"Yeah…" This was the one reason Lockdwon didn't like having Blitzwing as a client. The Icy personality he could stand. The Hothead and Random personalities…not so much. "Like I said, there's more. I'll have to go grab them, and then I'll bring them to you. Just don't forget my fee."

Blitzwing slipped back to his Icy personality. "Rest assured, you will be compensated…Provided you can capture all the Autobots and bring them to New Kaon…Alive." Then he switched to Random. "Oh! Can they sing a song? Can they? Can they? Ahahahahahahah!"

Lockdown switched the videophone off. He didn't know if insanity was contagious, but he didn't want to risk it. Besides, he had something much more interesting to focus on. "Time to see what kind of bonuses I'm getting."

Lockdown was expecting to find something on the larger mech, but he only had a bunch of tool mods. He had some grenades in his storage compartments, but nothing that impressed Lockdown. It looked like they'd been cobbled together out of a bunch of random parts and chemicals. Even if they were effective, Lockdown wouldn't want to risk it. Chances were they were too unpredictable and would blow up in his face. He'd have to go back and see if the other servo had anything worthwhile in it.

Lockdown moved on to the minibot. Most usually didn't have worthwhile mods, but occasionally he'd find a gem.

It only took a moment to open up his servos and get a look inside. "The heck?" That circuitry looked quite abnormal. He'd seen Autobot circuitry, and he'd seen Decepticon circuitry. They had different styles, for lack of a better word. This kid's circuitry didn't look like either of them.

No…That wasn't exactly true. That area looked sort of like Autobot circuitry. So did that area. And those areas looked more like Decepticon circuitry. The reason the circuitry looked so odd was because it was a combination of the two.

Lockdown wasn't a scientist. He didn't know if that meant anything in particular, but he figured it was worth asking about at the least. Even if he couldn't use them, someone might be interested in buying it from him. He formed his trusty chainsaw and got to work removing the mod.

Junkyard:

"Bumblebee and Wheeljack got botnapped?!" shouted Bulkhead.

Flareup smacked him. "Keep it down!"

Ratchet let out a long sigh. He felt like he was going to have a breakdown if he wasn't very careful. "Look, we need to take care of this as quickly as possible. Where's Prowl?"

"He had to stop and rest," said Bulkhead. Ratchet looked at Flareup for an explanation.

"He was having trouble balancing," she explained. "Guess he needs more practice with his vehicle mode. Don't know why he doesn't just switch to something with four wheels."

Of all the times for Prowl to be a stubborn son of a glitch… "You couldn't give him a lift?"

"Prowl said he needed to learn sometime," said Bulkhead.

"You gonna tell us what happened?" asked Flareup.

Well, the sooner he explained this, the sooner they could prepare and look for Lockdown and his victims. "The bounty hunter who took them is called Lockdown. He is a very good hunter and a very sadistic mech. I've run into him before."

"Is that where you got that scar?" asked Flareup.

Ratchet blinked. He'd been unconsciously fingering his war wound. He pulled his servo away. "Yeah, we've run into each other before…Lockdown enjoys taking trophies from his marks."

Bulkhead and Flareup's optics widened. "You mean…he takes parts of their bodies?" asked Bulkhead.

"Yeah, usually their mods," explained Ratchet. "He uses them himself. His body's a patchwork of parts."

"That's like something out of a horror story," muttered Flareup.

"Well, this is real," said Ratchet. "I'm speaking from experience." Ratchet ignored the winces that caused.

Flareup thought a moment. "You've fought him before and survived. Can we try that again?"

Ratchet's grip on his arm tightened. "No!"

Silence.

"I…wasn't alone. The other bot…She didn't make it."

Flareup winced. "Right, got it."

"But we can't just leave them," protested Bulkhead.

"You think I don't know that?!" snapped Ratchet. "It's not that simple. Even if we did know where his base is, we'd have to find a way into it, and if he's there…I really doubt we're in any shape to take him on." Even trained warriors couldn't beat him. "And even then, he'd find us eventually. It's part of his job."

"But-but-Bumblebee and Wheeljack will get chopped up!" protested Bulkhead.

"Not necessarily." Ratchet picked up Wheeljack's severed arm. "Wheeljack's mods are mostly for building and repairing, not the kind of thing Lockdown's interested in. And he'll be quick to figure out that Bumblebee's circuitry is odd. Of course, that might get his interest anyway. If he does decide to remove their mods, I should be able to reattach them and repair any damage." Physically anyway. He knew that there was only so much one could do to heal mental and emotional trauma. "But we need some sort of plan first."

At that moment, they heard the sound of a motor. They quickly transformed to vehicle mode. This turned out to be unnecessary as it was just Prowl. His holoform raised an eyebrow before shrugging it off. "Sorry I'm late."

Ratchet transformed back to robot mode. "Where were you?"

Prowl grunted. "Balancing is very different in vehicle mode." He frowned when he saw the spilled energon. "What exactly happened?"

"There's a bounty hunter trying to capture us," explained Flareup.

Prowl frowned. "I'm guessing he has Bumblebee and Wheeljack."

"We'll get them back," said Bulkhead.

"How?"

Bulkhead hesitated. "Uh…"

"We have no idea," admitted Flareup.

Ratchet started going over things in his processor. "He probably wants us alive. He obviously has some sort of ship if he came here and plans to leave again, but we have no idea where it is. Then there's the fact that he is a much stronger fighter than us. We were incredibly lucky when it came to Megatron. We won't get that sort of luck again."

"Actually…" Everyone looked at Prowl. "I might know a couple of things that will help."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge. "Oh, yeah? What?"

"On my way here, I noticed a rather odd building. It wasn't on the map I was using. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the shadows weren't the correct shape. I suspected it was a hologram, similar to the ones I use, but I decided to wait to investigate since it sounded like you were experiencing trouble. It could have something to do with this bounty hunter."

That…was actually very good news. They might be able to surprise Lockdown with this information. "What's the other thing?" asked Ratchet.

Prowl hesitated for a klik. He was not looking forward to the fallout from this. "I may know someone willing to help us."

Ratchet narrowed his optics. "…Who?"

Prowl thought a moment about what to say without giving too much away. "I'd rather not say." Ratchet gave him a look. "However, I believe they'd be willing to lend their assistance."

Ratchet crossed his arms. "Not unless I know who they are."

Prowl did not think Silverbolt or Sari would appreciate him giving away their existence, along with the Dinobots. Not to mention Ratchet probably wouldn't want their help due to his paranoia towards them. Really, Prowl didn't know why he trusted them either except that the two seemed to genuinely care about the wellbeing of the Dinobots.

Well, maybe the Dinobots would do. "You remember the animatronics that attacked Bumblebee?"

Now Ratchet looked really suspicious. "Yeah, what about them?"

"Not all of them were destroyed," admitted Prowl.

"Yeah, some of them reactivated and ran around Detroit," noted Flareup. She got some surprised looks. "What? I found a newsfeed. Anyway, the local law enforcement couldn't do anything to stop them, and they eventually ran off into the woods. There's still a bunch of humans looking for them."

"Yes, well, I may have stumbled upon them," admitted Prowl.

Ratchet twitched. "And you didn't think to tell anyone?!"

"What would you have done?" asked Prowl. "Have them destroyed? They are content and happy as they are. I saw no reason to change their situation."

"You're talking like you think they're alive," said Flareup.

"That's because they are," snapped Prowl

Ratchet growled. "We do not have time for this!"

"Why don't we send Bulkhead to get the Dinobots?" asked Flareup. "He's not exactly stealthy." Bulkhead nodded in agreement.

"I'm not sure how they'd react to him," admitted Prowl. Not to mention he was afraid Silverbolt or Sari might try to kill Bulkhead if he discovered them.

"We are not using the Dinobots!" insisted Ratchet.

"Why not?" asked Flareup. "Lockdown doesn't know about them so he wouldn't expect them."

Prowl could see this was going nowhere. They needed to get moving, and they needed to move now. He'd have to take action now. Prowl decided this was good enough and peeled out of there.

Ratchet twitched. "Prowl! Get back here you malfunctioning-" The author regrets to inform you that she cannot write the rest of Ratchet's yelling due to the content. Suffice to say Flareup and Bulkhead were staring at Ratchet with wide optics by the time he was done.

"That was scary," whispered Bulkhead.

Flareup nodded. "I'm starting to understand his nickname."

Ratchet rounded on them. "You wanna say something?!"

The two froze up. "Prowl sent us the coordinates!" shouted Flareup.

Ratchet accessed the coordinates. He actually recognized them. It was supposed to be an empty lot. "Fine. Flareup, you're with me. Bulkhead, you'll wait a couple of blocks away so Lockdown won't notice you. If we need back up, which is likely, we'll call you."

The two nodded with no argument. He was the veteran with experience with this particular bot. He likely knew the best course of action.

Shortly, thereafter:

"Well, this is the place," commented Bulkhead.

"_Quiet. Only use our internal communicators. We can't risk being overheard."_

"_Got it."_

Ratchet and Flareup rolled up to the building before carefully going through the walls. Looks like Prowl was right about it being a hologram. They transformed and took a few kliks to find a way in without making any noise. It involved a creative use of Ratchet's magnets and a crowbar.

That problem solved, they snuck down the hallway, back to back to try and prevent any possible sneak attacks. Fortunately, it didn't look like the layout had changed since the last time Ratchet had been here.

It was easy enough to find Wheeljack and Bumblebee. Ratchet vented a few times to try and calm down. It was the exactly the same…

"_Hey!"_ Flareup ran over and tried to shake Wheeljack back online. _"You okay?"_

Ratchet took a look at the damage. _"Considering what happened, Wheeljack probably went into emergency stasis to prevent any more damage from being done. He'll need repairs before he can be brought back online."_

Flareup moved on to Bumblebee and froze. _"Ratchet…"_

Ratchet took a look at Bumblebee. His mods had been removed. Scrap. Now he was going to need to find the two stingers before they could leave. _"See if you can get Wheeljack free. I'll deal with Bumblebee."_ Flareup nodded and got to work. Ratchet turned his attention to Bumblebee. _"Bumblebee! Can you hear me?"_

Bumblebee's optics flickered on. "Wha-Hey! Where are we?"

"_Sh! You want to let Lockdown know we're here?"_ Ratchet said. He quickly started undoing Bumblebee's restraints while Flareup started on Wheeljack. _"Can you walk?"_

"_I think so. Hey, why do my servos hurt so much?"_

Ratchet winced. _"I'll fix it when we get back."_ He didn't want Bumblebee to panic right now. He'd wait to explain the injury until after they were safe and he knew how bad it was.

Then he heard the sound of something dropping behind him. He whirled about and saw that Flareup had collapsed. That could only mean one thing. He ducked, barely dodging a chainsaw that would've taken his head off.

"Wondered when you'd show up," Lockdown drawled, not looking surprised at all. "Kept me waiting long enough."

"Hey! You leave him-" Bumblebee was cut off when Lockdown used the EMP generator on him, knocking him out again.

"Damn it…" muttered Ratchet. This was a complete disaster. At this rate, they were all going to be killed…or worse. "Damn you!"

Lockdown promptly shot Ratchet with the EMP generator. Ratchet fell to the ground. "Four down." Lockdown turned and started walking away. "Better go find the other two."

Then something hit him from behind, causing a jolt of pain. Lockdown grunted and pulled a piece of metal dripping with energon out of his back plates. He turned around and saw Ratchet standing. "What? But that's not possible!"

Ratchet practically snarled. "I guess it never occurred to you that that EMP generator won't work on the one bot that was meant to use it." A common practice really, even if very few realized it.

Lockdown smirked, throwing the piece of metal to the side. "Gotta admit, it's been a while since someone's caught me off guard like that." He formed his chainsaw. "Looks like I'll have to get serious."

A sudden roar interrupted what would have been…Well, it wouldn't have been epic. It would've probably been pretty one-sided even with Lockdown's injury.

Lockdown frowned. "What the Pit was that?"

"_Ratchet!" _commed Bulkhead. _"Prowl got the Dinobots! They're all muddy!"_

Ratchet blinked at the very strange message. "Huh?"

And that was when something burst into the room. It was the Triceratops Dinobot. Like Bulkhead had said, he was covered in mud. It also didn't actually seem that interested in attacking anything as it just snuffled around the unfamiliar environment. Lockdown frowned and grabbed it. "What's this supposed to be?"

Lockdown had just enough time to figure out that it felt metallic before it clamped down on his servo with its beaked mouth. Lockdown cursed as he tried to pull free. Whatever it was, it was strong. He formed the EMP generator, ready to blast it.

*RIP!*

Lockdown had to bite back a scream of pain as Ratchet ripped the EMP generator off with his bare servos. Slag, that hurt!

Ratchet pointed the EMP generator straight at Lockdown and pulled the trigger without bothering to check the power setting. Right now, he couldn't care less about if Lockdown was turned into a vegetable or not.

Lockdown only had enough time for his optics to widen before he dropped like a stone. Ratchet, caught up in the bad memories and the fear that Lockdown was somehow faking, grabbed the nearest blunt object and started pummeling Lockdown with it. He kept it up until the Dinobot suddenly snorted and shook his head and Lockdown a couple of times.

Ratchet's system cooling fans were running at full strength as he looked Lockdown over. He didn't look too damaged.

Just to be sure, Ratchet grabbed a scalpel and rammed it into Lockdown's chassis. If that didn't kill Lockdown, then Ratchet was going to start questioning if the bounty hunter was even alive.

Now he just had to get everyone out of here and back to the ship. He didn't want to have to make another trip, so he needed a way to carry all the unconscious bots out at once.

Ratchet looked between the Dinobot and the three offline Autobots.

A moment later, the three were piled onto the Dinobot's back. The Dinobot didn't seem to have a problem with this. Ratchet searched frantically through all the equipment, tools, and shudder-inducing trophies for Bumblebee's stingers.

Found them! Ratchet looked them over. The removal had been a bit messy, but the actual working components looked okay. He should be able to reattach them without too many problems. He slipped them into his subspace. Now he just had to get everyone back to the ship. That would be easier if the Dinobot would let go of Lockdown.

Ratchet tried to pull Lockdown away. The Dinobot stubbornly pulled back and clamped down even harder on the servo. "Oh come on! Let…Go!"

With a snapping sound, Lockdown's servo was ripped off, the other half still clasped in the Dinobot's mouth. Ratchet was mildly surprised but didn't care about the state of Lockdown's body as long as he could get out of here. He dropped Lockdown and started steering the Dinobot out so he could get leave the ship and as far away from this place as possible.

Well, that was the plan. The rest of the ship was in chaos. There were several mud covered forms running amok with Prowl and Bulkhead trying to bring order.

"Oh, good, you rescued them," said Prowl nonchalantly, like he wasn't trying to corral several mud-covered dinosaurs on a space ship.

Bulkhead's optics widened as he got a good look at the other group, especially what the triceratops Dinobot had in his mouth. "Is that a servo?"

"Don't think about it," said Ratchet. "Just help me get these three somewhere out of the way so I can give them a patch job."

A sudden loud crash echoed from a room. Prowl glanced inside and winced. "I think I better get these five back to the forest before they cause any trouble."

He had a point there. "Fine. As soon as we get these three back to the junkyard." Ratchet then narrowed his optics. "Don't think this is over. We are going to have a long talk after this is over."

Prowl groaned. "Understood."

Shortly afterwards, they were in the junkyard again. For reasons that Ratchet suspected he didn't want to know, the Dinobots obediently followed after Prowl as he led them back to the forest.

Ratchet had just finished welding some metal over the large gashes in Wheeljack's body, when Flareup started to come to. "Ow…What hit me?"

"Lockdown."

Flareup blinked and looked around, realizing that she was in a completely different place than she was a moment ago. "…Well, I feel useless."

"Lockdown? As in the Lockdown you and Wheeljack told me horror stories about?"

Ratchet looked over. Bumblebee had woken out without being noticed and was staring at Ratchet in horror. It looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown. Ratchet nodded cautiously. "Yeah."

Bumblebee's optics widened. "And we survived?!" And now it looked like he was having that breakdown.

Ratchet winced. "Somehow."

"Are we gonna have to spend the rest of our time on this planet dodging that guy?" asked Flareup.

"…I don't know," admitted Ratchet. He'd stabbed Lockdown in the chassis after hitting him in the processor with an EMP. His color hadn't faded, but that could be because those weren't his parts or because he took longer to fade than most. Even if he was dead, Ratchet didn't think he could think of Lockdown as dead unless he saw the corpse. "If he's still alive, he'll need time to recover from the injuries he sustained. We'll go check and see if he's still there after I've made repairs."

That said, Ratchet tapped Wheeljack's chassis experimentally. "That'll hold for now." He shifted his gaze to Bulkhead. "You still got his servo?"

"Yep!" Bulkhead opened his storage compartment and held it up. "Right here!"

"Good, it'd be a pain if I had to reconstruct an entire arm." And Ratchet really didn't think they had the resources.

Bumblebee's servos were a bit easier to patch up. Ratchet just welded some sheet metal over the exposed circuits and tested it to make sure there weren't any leaks. It seemed fine. "Okay, let's go home."

Much later:

Ratchet let out a vent of relief. Wheeljack's injuries had been repaired, including his detached servo, and Ratchet had just finished reattaching Bumblebee's mods. The minibot had slipped into recharge as soon as Ratchet took him out of medical stasis. Ratchet decided to leave him be.

He nearly ran into Flareup as he was leaving the medical bay. "Whoa!" Flareup quickly backed up. "Sorry, about that."

Ratchet sighed. "It's fine…You need something?"

"Uh, I've got some bad news…"

Ratchet groaned. "What now?"

"Bulkhead and I figured it would be a good idea to go and make sure Lockdown was deactivated," explained Flareup. "Only, when we got there the fake building hologram and ship were gone."

"What?!"

Flareup winced. "Yeah, I guess he's still alive or has a partner we didn't know about."

"Lockdown works alone," snapped Ratchet. He groaned. "I stabbed him in the chassis with a laser scalpel. How is he still alive?"

Flareup's optics widened. "You stabbed him? In the chassis?"

Ratchet frowned at the tone of Flareup's voice. "Lockdown is too dangerous to allow to live, especially when you're his target."

Flareup held up her servos. "Okay, okay, I get it." She backed away. "I'll just…leave you alone now." She hurried into a nearby room.

Ratchet huffed. He probably could have handled that better, but he couldn't really bring himself to care right now, especially since he still had to confront Prowl about keeping the Dinobots secret. He stormed towards Prowl's room. Prowl was sitting on his berth, calmly waiting for Ratchet. "You've got some explaining to do."

"I believe I explained everything back in the junkyard," Prowl responded.

"No, you didn't," countered Ratchet. "How long have you known about the Dinobots?"

Prowl shrugged. "Not long. 11 solar cycles."

That wasn't long by Cybertronian standards, but it was still too long in Ratchet's opinion. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Prowl was silent, mainly because he felt he'd already expressed his reasons for that.

Ratchet growled. "How come they didn't try to attack you like they did Bumblebee?"

Prowl just shrugged at that.

"How often have you been meeting up with the Dinobots since you found them?"

Prowl was silent again.

Ratchet huffed. "Prowl, if I found out you've been going behind my back…" Ratchet trailed off as he suddenly remembered why he'd wanted to meet up with the younger bots in the first place. "Wait a minute. What do they use as an energy source?"

Prowl tensed up slightly. "…Energon."

"You're the one who's been stealing energon!"

"Yes," admitted Prowl.

Ratchet promptly hit the ninja bot over the head with a wrench. "Why would you take our one power source and give to a pack of wild bots!"

"Because they would starve otherwise," said Prowl. "They may be destructive, but they are alive. I don't know how. I don't know why. However, I believe there must be a reason for them to have come to life. As such, I refuse to let them starve to death. Do what you wish, but I will not abandon them."

Ratchet twitched. He could understand preserving life. He was a medic. He was all about keeping others alive and healthy. He hated when bots kept secrets, lied, stole from him, and refused to cooperate.

Prowl was doing 3 out of 4 of these things, possibly all 4 of them.

"You're not leaving this ship unless Wheeljack or I give you permission, barring an emergency," said Ratchet in a steely voice. "And you're going to be taking over all of the chores until further notice, and I do mean ALL of them."

Prowl nodded. "Understood."

Ratchet gave Prowl another look before growling and stomping out of the room. Prowl waited until he was sure Ratchet was gone before he relaxed and slumped a bit.

The Dinobots and Sari better appreciate what he's going through for them.

Elsewhere…

Nancy was sleeping in her bed, so she didn't even notice when a dark, sleek form crawled in through her window. It stepped softly on the bed so as not to wake up Nancy and jumped onto the floor where Soundwave was looking at a laptop. Soundwave turned to the form. "Ravage: Report."

Ravage, the other robot's name, tugged out a cord and plugged it into the USB port on the laptop. Various pictures and information flashed across the screen, including images of the Autobots.

"Report: Very favorable. Megatron: Will be pleased."

_And now Butterflies presents: Questions and Answers with Vector Prime_

"You'll be happy to know that the author's hair is back to its normal color."

"Why would they care about that?"

"Unfortunately, as of…Monday, we don't have any new reviews. So there is nothing for me to explain or address." He turned to KHGiggle. "Maybe you need to work on your writing style."

"Hey! Not all stories have to be super popular! Lots of writers have stories that don't have a lot of fans! Anyway, I might get more hits once I finish this season and move on to the next one."

"You could try drawing something and posting it on that art site you're so fond of perusing."

"Have you seen my drawings?"

Vector paused. "Good point. You should stick to writing."

"Oh! Maybe I could get a photo!"

"How would you…" Vector glared off screen. "No, I am not placing you in that universe just so you can snap pictures."

"Why not?"

"That's something Miko Nakadai would do."

"I'm not that irresponsible."

"And then there's what would happen if you encountered any of the inhabitants in a reality you have unintentionally altered."

"What would happen?"

"Mass chaos, worm holes, timeline bending, Unicronian viruses, angry time guardians…Need I go on?"

"I'll stay here."

"Good. Less work for me."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	8. Courage

"There! All done!" Wheeljack happily stood back to examine the new energon converter. "That should take care of that." With a second converter, they wouldn't have to worry about an energon shortage. Now to get back to making replacement parts for the ship. He'd fallen really behind on that in the last few solar cycles.

Wheeljack had just found that doohickey that separates and purifies metals when he heard a tap behind him. He turned and saw Prowl standing there with a bucket. "Hi Prowl! What's up? Need some more solvent?"

Prowl shook his head. "I'm fine." He actually wasn't bothered by doing all the chores that Ratchet could think of. It wasn't the first time he'd had to do something like this, and he could think of much worse punishments. He only had one problem with this really. "I was just wondering if you could do something for me."

Wheeljack shrugged. "Sure, as long as it's within reason…and as long as it doesn't involve making high grade. Ratchet's forbidden me from trying that whenever Bumblebee's around."

"No, nothing like that. I've been forbidden to leave the ship-"

"Oh, you actually want to leave the ship?" asked Wheeljack. Prowl nodded. "Great! Ratchet's being suspicious and paranoid and won't let any of the kids leave without my supervision. Bumblebee's just traumatized and doesn't wanna go outside. Flareup and Bulkhead are nervous, but I think I could convince them. I thought it might be the same with you, but this makes more sense."

"Yes, anyway, it's been a few days," continued Prowl. "The Dinobots are probably running low on energon. Would you mind taking them some?"

"Sure! I've been wanting to see them for myself. Plus I'm running low on materials anyway. It's about time to do a supplies run." Wheeljack thought for a moment. "Maybe I can talk the kids to come along. If we can go about without getting attacked, it might make them feel a bit better."

Prowl frowned. "I can't say how the Dinobots will react to that. They helped against Lockdown, but some of them are still quite violent."

Wheeljack waved Prowl's concern off. "Hey, if you talked them into helping us, they can't be that bad. Besides, Ratchet doesn't want me going out on my own either so I kind of have to."

Prowl nodded. "He's taking this hard."

"Yes, well, he had a really bad experience with Lockdown during the war and had a near repeat of it. I think it's causing his PTSD to flare," explained Wheeljack. "He's probably gonna act like this unless we can contact Cybertron for backup, which isn't likely since I'm still repairing the communication array, or Lockdown is found and deactivated, which would take a miracle." Wheeljack sighed. "I keep trying to talk with him about it, but he always changes the subject…"

Prowl considered asking what had happened, but decided not to press the subject. He could respect wanting to avoid a painful memory. "We set up a drop point, since I have had trouble locating them."

Wheeljack chuckled. "Out snuck you?"

"I think it's more that I was short on time," explained Prowl. "I could only spend so much time outside before Ratchet started contacting me and reminding me that I'm supposed to be taking it easy."

"Sure it is…" teased Wheeljack. "So, where is the drop point?"

Prowl sent over the coordinates. "There's a group of stones there. I put the cubes in a space there."

"Got it. How much would they need?"

"At least two each. The larger ones will require three."

"I'll just go with 15 and get the kids to help me carry them," said Wheeljack. He stepped around Prowl. "I'll be back when I get back. Be good for Ratchet!"

Prowl just went back to cleaning.

Within a few minutes, Wheeljack had rounded everyone up. "This is safe, right?" asked Bumblebee.

"Yeah, don't worry. Ratchet stabbed Lockdown pretty close to the spark chamber," Wheeljack reminded them. "Lockdown's gonna need time to recover from that, especially since he's no medic. I doubt we'll be seeing him any time soon." Wheeljack handed the kids a few energon cubes before slipping some into his subspace. "Everybody ready? Any questions? No? Good." Wheeljack practically pranced over to the airlock. "C'mon!"

Bulkhead and Flareup exchanged a look before following after Wheeljack. Bumblebee took a moment to gather his courage before running after them.

Nothing would happen while he stuck with the group, right?

Be that as it may, Bumblebee was still rather jumpy as they walked through the forest. Bulkhead and Flareup were noticeably nervous as well. Wheeljack sighed. He was worried about this. Every bot in the war ended up paranoid and skittish after a while due to the lifestyle. It was a consequence of surviving battles with the knowledge you still had many more to go. He'd been hoping they'd be able to escape that since Megatron had been killed during their one encounter with him. Prowl had been the only one to encounter Starscream, and he'd handled it pretty well.

Then Lockdown decided to come and dispense his own brand of emotional trauma.

Not that Wheeljack didn't understand. He'd gone through some traumatizing stuff during the war himself. You had to learn how to roll with it unless you wanted to have a breakdown from the stress.

How to keep them from getting that bad? He knew what worked for himself, but how to go about cheering them up? Wheeljack was scanning for anything that might be interesting enough to distract them.

That deer was still following them. Weren't they supposed to be a timid species? Maybe there was something else interesting to focus on.

Well, what do you know? Wheeljack walked over to a rock face almost completely covered in vines. "Look at this!"

"Vines?" asked Bumblebee.

"No, this." Wheeljack darted through the vines, disappearing completely. The kids drew back in surprise before Wheeljack stuck his head back out. "These vines are covering an opening in the stone that's big enough for us to fit through." He darted back inside the cave.

The kids exchanged looks for a moment before pushing the vines aside and entering the cave. It didn't look that special. Yeah, it was big enough for them to stand in, but that couldn't be that unusual. Something seemed to have caught his attention though. "Hello…" Wheeljack turned on his headlights. "That's interesting…"

Bulkhead peered over Wheeljack's shoulder. "Are those cave paintings?"

"Well, it's a cave, and it looks like paint," muttered Wheeljack.

"No, I mean pictures ancient humans drew on cave walls when they were learning to use tools," explained Bulkhead. Despite all appearances, Bulkhead was a talented artist and knew a lot about various art styles. It sounded like he'd picked up a bit about Earth's art styles as well. "This looks different from the pictures I've seen though."

By this time, Flareup and Bumblebee had turned their attention to the pictures and turned on their headlights. "These are pretty cool!" said Bumblebee. "This one's a buffalo! This one's a wolf! This one…looks violent."

Flareup frowned as she examined the pictures. "You said humans painted these, right?"

Bulkhead nodded. "Yeah."

"Then how did they get up so high?" asked Flareup. "These are at our optic level."

Bulkhead blinked. "Uh, I dunno." He turned to Wheeljack. "Did they have ladders back then?"

Wheeljack blinked and shrugged. "I dunno. You'll have to ask an anthropologist."

"A what?"

"Uh…" Wheeljack wasn't sure how to describe the term. "A scientist that specializes in the history of human development…I think…There's not a Cybertronian equivalent I can compare it to."

"Guys…" said Bumblebee, his optics wide. "I found something that looks like Cybertronix!"

That got everyone's attention and instantly brought them over to where Bumblebee was standing.

"This does look like a glyph!"

"It's really messy!"

"I think it says family," said Flareup. "And the things around it look sort of like humans."

"Spread out and see if you can find anything else," instructed Wheeljack. "This could be important."

They spread out. "I think I found some bots!" said Bulkhead.

"I found some cities!" said Bumblebee.

"I found more glyphs," said Flareup. "Whoever wrote this had really messy servo-writing. I can't tell what half of this is supposed to be."

"He's not very good at drawing either," commented Bulkhead. The proportions of the bots were awful.

Wheeljack had to agree with that. Whoever had drawn all of this stuff had no artistic talent. He figured most of the stuff had been drawn out of boredom. "This is very odd."

"So, who did this?" asked Bumblebee. "I mean…I thought we were the only ones here besides the Decepticons, and this doesn't seem like something they'd do."

Flareup ran a servo over one of the drawings. "These are pretty old. I think these were done a long time before we woke up."

"So…Who did these?" asked Bulkhead.

"Megatron?" suggested Bumblebee. This got him some surprised looks. He shrugged. "We never actually saw him die, and he'd have a lot of free time."

Wheeljack considered that. Megatron did have a reputation of being impossible to kill, and considering all the stuff they'd already encountered, it might be possible for Megatron to suddenly pop up out of nowhere…okay maybe not the best words to describe the most terrifying warlord in history. Wheeljack certainly couldn't think of any reason for Megatron to go around doing random drawings after crashing on Earth. The guy had been missing an arm. The re-entry must have done some damage too, although Wheeljack couldn't say how much damage since he didn't know how thick Megatron's armor was. If Wheeljack had been that damaged, he knew he wouldn't be interested in drawing anything. Plus, some of these pictures seemed too…cheery in Wheeljack's opinion. He couldn't ever picture Megatron drawing smiling faces. "I don't think we have to worry about this being his work."

"Dinobots?" suggested Bulkhead.

Flareup shook her head. "Too young."

"But who else is there?" argued Bulkhead.

Everyone looked at the various glyphs and pictures. Bulkhead had a very good point. Did this cave belong to a Cybertronian they had yet to encounter? The implications were staggering. Was it an Autobot ally or another Decepticon to worry about? How long had they been here? Why had they come to this planet in the first place? Had it been an accident or had they come here with a purpose?

Did they ever leave the planet?

Were they trapped here too?

Flareup stepped towards the exit. "Maybe we should leave. We don't know how the owner will react to us being here."

Wheeljack nodded. "Yeah, good point." He took one more good look around the cave to see if there was anything that would give him some kind of clue as to the identity of the owner of the cave, or at least their chosen faction. Nothing. He sighed and left the cave with the kids, mildly disappointed.

"So, who do you think lives there?" asked Bumblebee.

"I'd say someone pretty tall," said Flareup. "Some of those drawings were pretty high up…And it's usually Decepticons that are that big."

"What if it was one bot standing on top of another?" asked Bumblebee.

"That could work," admitted Flareup.

"I dunno," said Bulkhead. "It looked like they were all done in the same style by the same guy."

"Okay, it was just one guy then," said Bumblebee.

"Unless it was a set of twins," mused Wheeljack. "But the chances of running into twins on a virtually unknown planet are astronomical."

"Maybe we can do some sort of spying operation to see if someone returns to the cave," suggested Flareup. "Wait. No, the only one who's good at that sort of thing is Prowl, and Ratchet's still not allowing him to leave the ship or fight."

"I guess there's nothing we can do about it," said Bulkhead.

Bumblebee made a mildly annoyed sound. "That's gonna drive me crazy, not knowing at all."

Flareup grinned as she thought of some of the broadcasts she'd been watching. "There's actually a lot of interesting unsolved mysteries on this planet," said Flareup. "Some of the theories for those are that aliens did it."

"…Seriously?" asked Bumblebee. Flareup nodded. "We didn't even know this planet existed before we landed here."

"But an alien is responsible for this one," pointed out Flareup.

Bumblebee paused. "Hey, does that means other species might've found this planet already and just not mentioned it? Maybe we can ask them for help."

"I don't think so," said Wheeljack. "If a responsible race found this planet, they wouldn't interfere and would allow the inhabitants to develop on their own. If an irresponsible race found the planet and started mucking about, they likely would take a few humans and eventually get found out and cause a scandal throughout most of the galaxy."

"There are stories of alien abductions," said Flareup. "They sound sort of like drunk frat boy initiations though."

"That could be a possibility," admitted Wheeljack. Some fraternities pulled stunts like that. Wheeljack could happily say he'd never belonged to that kind of fraternity…or any sort of fraternity really.

What was the appeal of fraternities anyway?

They were still musing over the possible identity of the cave's inhabitant and reports of alien encounters when they reached the coordinates that Prowl had given them. "This looks like the place." Wheeljack started placing the energon in the pile of rocks. "Okay, hand me your energon."

Flareup and Bulkhead pulled out their energon cubes out with no problem. When Bumblebee pulled his out something darted out of the surrounding trees and slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. The other three Autobots freaked and readied their weapons. Bumblebee shrieked and darted out from under his attacker. Said attacker…started nomming on the energon Bumblebee had dropped.

After a moment of tensely waiting to see what the attacker would do, the Autobots started to relax and finally took a good look at the attacker. He was mainly gray, blue, and red with a red crest and what looked like a collared cape. He also had blue optics, so he probably wasn't a Decepticon.

The mystery bot seemed more interested in the energon than the other bots, ignoring them completely. "Hey! What was that for?!" shouted Bumblebee.

The mech blinked. "What?"

"Ramming into me like that!"

The mech looked around in confusion. "No goats. You stupid?"

"Hey!"

"Who're you?" asked Wheeljack.

"Swoop."

"Are you an Autobot?"

"What Autobot?"

Wheeljack blinked. "Are you a Decepticon then?"

"What Decepticon?"

Wheeljack balked. "Okay, guess you're a Neutral then."

Flareup had spent this time examining Swoop. "What are you? This doesn't look like any alt mode I've seen before."

"Swoop Dinobot!"

The Autobots stared at Swoop. They had all gotten a look at the Dinobots when they first came to life and tried to kill Bumblebee. "You don't look like a Dinobot," said Bulkhead. Swoop looked a little odd, but he definitely wasn't a dinosaur.

Then Swoop transformed to his alt mode. He certainly looked like a dinosaur now. While the Autobots stared at him in shock, Swoop decided to start pecking at another cube.

Then Wheeljack interfered. "This is amazing!" Swoop squawked as Wheeljack pulled out a wing to examine it. "You went from being a simple animatronic to a sentient being!" Swoop pulled his wing out of Wheeljack's grasp. Wheeljack decided to move on to the crest instead. "And you can even transform like us!" Swoop jerked away before transforming and hiding behind Bulkhead. "Do you have a spark?" He tried to follow Swoop. Swoop ran to the other side of Bulkhead. Wheeljack tried to follow, causing them to run around a confused Bulkhead. "The implications could be staggering!"

"Help!" shouted Bulkhead.

Bumblebee was laughing too hard to help. Flareup rolled her optics. "Oh for the love of…" She reached over, grabbed Wheeljack, and pulled him away from Bulkhead. "Cut that out! You're scaring him!"

"But-"

"Do you want to piss him or any of his siblings off?" asked Flareup.

"He wasn't pissed off. He was just really uncomfortable," reasoned Wheeljack.

Swoop peered out from behind Bulkhead with big optics. "He crazy?"

Bumblebee thought for a moment before nodding. "Pretty much."

"Look, Prowl just asked us to drop off some energon for you guys," said Flareup. "We've done that, and you can take it to your friends."

Swoop tilted his head. "Who Prowl?"

"He's about this tall," said Bumblebee, holding his servo up above his head. "Black and gold. Looks like he's wearing a pointy pair of glasses."

Swoop brightened. "Oh, you mean Daddy."

Everyone froze. "Daddy?"

Swoop nodded. "Daddy."

The Autobots were silent. Then they all burst into laughter. Swoop looked around in confusion. "Why you laugh? What funny?"

Flareup managed to calm down enough that she was just giggling. "He just doesn't seem like the type. Anyway, he did send us."

"How you know Daddy?" asked Swoop.

"We work with him," explained Wheeljack.

Swoop tilted his head. "You pack mates?"

"Sort of."

"Oh…Why Daddy not come?"

He did something bad and isn't allowed to leave our territory," said Flareup.

"Okay," said Swoop, easily believing the explanation Flareup gave him. He started gathering up the various cubes. He scurried off as soon as he had as much as he could carry.

"Well, that was weird," commented Bumblebee.

"But adorable," added Bulkhead.

Flareup snickered. "I'm still can't get over the idea of Prowl being a daddy." That got some chuckles from everyone else as well. He was never gonna live that down.

"Well, that's one chore down," said Wheeljack. "Now we just have to get some scrap metal. C'mon. It's getting late enough that no one should be around, and if we wait too long, we'll attract too much attention."

"Okay, let's get going," said Bulkhead.

"Yeah, Ratchet's gonna start to worry if we're out too late," said Bumblebee.

"That's okay," said Wheeljack. "I'll deal with that. I've got plenty of experience doing so."

"Fine by me," said Bumblebee.

As the made their way out of the forest, Wheeljack couldn't help but let his head fins light up happily. While it hadn't been quite in the way he'd expected, this outing had served to raise the kids' spirits somewhat. Looks like the Dinobots weren't nearly as scary as they first appeared to be. In fact, Swoop had been almost overwhelmingly cute and youngling-like.

Wheeljack didn't know if the other Dinobots were the same, but it would certainly explain why there were no reports of dinosaur attacks since the Dinobots had escaped into the forest. It was certainly one less thing to worry about for the moment.

Yeah, there was that weird cave, but Wheeljack wasn't going to worry about that unless they found out the occupant was dangerous, and if Prowl had gone in the forest without running into said occupant, it probably wasn't going to cause them any harm.

The scavenging went off without a hitch, and they made it back to the lake without incident. Wheeljack was feeling pretty good about himself.

Then they came out of the airlock and found themselves face-to-face with a furious Ratchet, arms crossed and everything. Wheeljack held up his servos. "Before you say anything, it was my idea, and I talked them all into coming along!"

Ratchet immediately hit Wheeljack in the head with a wrench hard enough to leave a sizeable dent. "What in the name of Primus possessed you to go gallivanting about when we know Lockdown is around?!"

"In my defense, we did need supplies!"

"Then you let me know and we go to the surface! The kids don't need to put themselves in danger like that!"

While Ratchet was blowing up at Wheeljack, the kids snuck away to avoid his wrath. Wheeljack couldn't blame them. Ratchet was pretty darn scary when he got like this. "Calm down! It's not a big deal!"

That got him another wrench to the head. "Not a big deal?! They could've been captured, tortured, and killed!"

"I know you're worried about them! I am too! But I couldn't just let them become so frightened that they locked themselves away! That's no way to live!"

"At least they'd be safe!"

"They're not gonna end up like Arcee!"

Ratchet froze for a moment before his optics narrowed. "Don't you dare bring her up," he said in a steely voice.

Wheeljack winced at the tone and look. Oh yeah, he was definitely walking on eggshells now. "Look, I know you take the loss of every patient personally. I know you took…what happened personally. But there wasn't anything anyone could do."

"Shut up."

"No, you need to hear this," said Wheeljack. "Arcee chose to put herself in danger. Lockdown would've gone after even if you weren't there, and if it hadn't been you that found her, the Decepticons would've gotten the codes, Project Omega would've failed, the Decepticons would have won, we'd be dead, the younglings wouldn't even have been brought online-" This time Wheeljack was hit so hard that he started to see error messages.

"You. Don't. Know. Anything," ground out Ratchet. "You weren't there. You don't know what it was like. For either of us."

To Ratchet's surprise, Wheeljack started laughing. It wasn't Wheeljack's usual jolly laughter either. It was hysterical, tinged with sense of sadness. "You know what? You're right. I wasn't there, but I have a pretty good idea of what it must've been like."

Ratchet snorted. "Oh yeah? And how would you know that?"

"Because no one came to rescue me last time Lockdown captured me."

Ratchet was stunned into silence. "What?"

"That's right. This is actually the second time I ran into Lockdown!" continued Wheeljack. "And he took my mods, which were completely different back then by the way, handed me over to the Decepticons, and went on his merry way. And I don't know if having your memory wiped or being tortured for information or skills is worse, but at least I've made an effort to move on with my life!"

Ratchet stared at Wheeljack in a new, horrified light. "Then those scars…" Whenever Ratchet gave Wheeljack his regular examination, he'd notice various scars on his protoform. He'd always assumed they were from a particularly nasty accident, but now…

Wheeljack nodded, placing his servos on his hips. "That's right, and for the record, I wasn't nearly so accident prone before then."

Ratchet actually, drew back, like he was seeing Wheeljack for the first time. Wheeljack had always been friendly, reckless, ridiculous, loving life no matter what came to pass, always playing with Bumblebee when Ratchet felt like he couldn't stand to be around the youngling anymore…

How had Wheeljack managed to be so normal after such a traumatizing series of events? That was far worse than what Ratchet had been through, and he could fully admit he had never fully recovered.

It suddenly occurred to Ratchet that Wheeljack was much stronger than he had ever thought.

"Ratchet? You okay?" asked Wheeljack.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" asked Ratchet.

Wheeljack shrugged. "Like I said, trying to move on. And since you seemed so…scarred, it just didn't seem like a good idea to ever bring it up."

Ratchet winced. He'd always made it clear he didn't want to talk about the war whenever someone asked about it, Wheeljack included. "I…" What could he say to that? "…apologize."

Wheeljack immediately snapped back to his normal self. "Apology accepted." He chuckled. "And since we've made up, I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that while we were taking some energon to the Dinobots and ran into one of them. It was friendly and adorable and could transform and talk."

Ratchet could only stare at Wheeljack before groaning and facepalming. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I joke about a lot of stuff," admitted Wheeljack. "But I wouldn't joke about something serious like that."

Ratchet sighed. "As if things weren't complicated enough already."

"It also called Prowl 'Daddy'," added Wheeljack. "Explains a lot doesn't it?"

Ratchet mulled over this information. "Did it have a spark?"

"I couldn't check."

Well, Ratchet wasn't going to think too much on it for now. There wasn't anything they could do to change it, and he could only think of a couple of outcomes. Better to push it to the back of his processor in favor of more immediate problems. Ratchet grabbed Wheeljack's servo and led him away. "C'mon, let's get you fixed up."

"Oh goody! A lecture-free repair!"

"Don't push it."

Not too far away, Prowl was washing the walls. He was waiting until Wheeljack and the others got back to move on to mopping. The punishment detail wasn't really that bad. It sort of reminded him of when he first became Yoketron's (unwilling) student.

"Prowl!"

Prowl jumped and spun, nearly taking Flareup's head off with a shuriken. Fortunately, she ducked quickly enough to prevent that. Flareup stared at Prowl, optics wide in horror. "What're you trying to do?! Kill me?!"

Prowl was also horrified by his reaction and quickly put the shuriken away. He'd nearly made a horrible mistake. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to attack you…Where did you come from?"

Flareup gave him a weird look. "You didn't hear me?"

"I heard you shout my name next to my head," deadpanned Prowl.

"Not that. The two times I called you before that. I just shouted that last time 'cause I thought you were ignoring me," explained Flareup.

Prowl blinked. How'd he miss something like that? He should have noticed Flareup approaching him, even if she hadn't said anything. "I…must be out of practice. Or I was lost in my thoughts. Maybe a combination of both."

Flareup gave him a worried look. "You sure? Maybe you should go see Ratchet."

Prowl shook his head. "No, I'm sure it was a one-time thing. I'll just need to practice a bit once I get the chance."

Flareup sighed. "Fine, if you say so."

"Why were you calling me anyway? Did you need something?"

Flareup grinned. "What's it feel like to be a daddy?"

Prowl's optics widened. "How did you hear about that?"

"We ran into Swoop while we were dropping off the energon," explained Flareup. "He was pretty friendly all things considered."

Prowl groaned. "Great…"

Flareup tilted her head curiously at his tone. "What's wrong?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't meet up."

Flareup frowned. "Why? What's the big deal? Is it because they're intelligent and can transform?"

"You know about that?"

"He demonstrated for us," explained Flareupl, crossing her arms. "I gotta admit, they certainly seem alive to me. I wouldn't be surprised if they had sparks." She paused and gave Prowl a meaningful look. "Do they have sparks?" Prowl was silent. When he maintained the silence, Flareup took that as a 'yes' and couldn't help but sigh. "Look, I get not wanting to share information. If I could get away with it, I'd never let anyone know that I got kicked out of school because I accidentally blew up my drill sergeant's house."

"Why am I not surprised?" drawled Prowl.

Flareup heated up slightly. "I said I was sorry!" She quickly regained her composure. "Anyway, I don't think you needed to keep this from us. Ratchet knows what it's like to adopt a youngling unexpectedly. He might've been annoyed, but he wouldn't have left them to survive on their own. The only reason he was so upset was because he hates when bots hide stuff from him."

"I still stand by my decision," said Prowl.

"Stubborn son of a glitch," muttered Flareup. She placed her servos on her hips. "And what exactly were you planning to do when we finally leave this planet? We can't exactly stay here. We gotta get the Allspark somewhere safe."

"I'll leave them an energon converter," said Prowl. "This planet has plenty of energy sources they can use."

Flareup stared at Prowl in shock. "You're just gonna leave them here?"

"Yes, they wouldn't be happy on Cybertron. Those with alt modes based on organic creatures are usually looked down upon, even treated as lesser beings. They wouldn't take this well since they're sparklings in mind. This could cause some very extreme misunderstandings. Also, they enjoy rough housing, and a couple of them have short tempers."

"Okay…I see where you're coming from," admitted Flareup. "But we can't just leave them here."

"And why not?" questioned Prowl.

"Energon converters need regular maintenance," explained Flareup. "Wheeljack actually spends a lot of time taking care of the converters we have, and you need to have a basic understanding of engineering to do this. If you left a converter exposed to the elements it wouldn't last very long. Unless you want the Dinobots to starve to death, we have to take them with us when we leave this planet."

Prowl froze up. He hadn't even thought of that. He'd expected that Sari and Silverbolt would refuse to give up the Dinobots, and he'd thought an energon converter and instructions would be enough to keep them online, but if what Flareup had said was true… "I need a new plan."

"What's wrong with just taking them back to Cybertron?" asked Flareup. "It would be an adjustment, but maybe if we got them to live in the ship for a little while before returning, it might not be so bad."

"It's not that simple," said Prowl.

Flareup looked at Prowl in confusion before a look of comprehension passed across her face. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"I cannot say."

Flareup groaned. "Really? After all the slag you got for keeping the Dinobots secret?"

"This is different."

Flareup threw her servos. "Fine." She turned on her heal and started walking away. "I hope it's worth it."

Prowl couldn't help but internally sigh. Now he felt worried about the Dinobots, Flareup had made it quite clear she was upset with him. She probably wasn't going to trust him again.

Trust once lost is not easily regained.

Prowl shook his head. Remembering the words of his teacher just made the whole situation more painful.

"There's a cave full of Cybertronix out there?" asked Ratchet as he carefully removed the dents he'd given Wheeljack.

Wheeljack nodded. "Yeah, it was messy writing, but it was definitely Cybertronix. We came up with some crazy theories, but I doubt most of them are even remotely possible. All we could tell was that it was a Cybertronian."

Ratchet grunted. "Decepticon?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "There weren't any faction symbols. Now that I think about it, a Decepticon would've left that behind, if only to prove they had a claim to the planet. An Autobot might've done the same thing. Do you suppose it could be a Neutral?"

"Maybe, a lot went into hiding when the war broke out. Most decided not to return to Cybertron. If it was a Neutral, the owner won't be interested in attacking us at least."

"Maybe they can help us!" suggested Wheeljack. "I'm not sure how they'd be able to help, but any assistance would be appreciated at this point."

Ratchet just grunted in response.

"Flareup suggested observing the cave to see if anyone returns to it," continued Wheeljack. "What do you think?"

"No. The kids can go outside. You've proven your point in that regard. Staying in one place for an extended period of time would probably end up catching someone's attention."

Wheeljack nodded. "Good point. I think we should figure out who it is at some point though. I wouldn't want to leave someone here when they had a chance to be rescued."

"And if they're already deceased? That's the most likely outcome."

Wheeljack was silent. "We can at least bring the body back. No matter the faction, they deserve that at least."

Ratchet nodded in agreement. If this was an MIA bot, he or she might have loved ones wondering what happened to them.

Ratchet briefly wondered how Cybertron was dealing with their disappearance in particular. Normally, no one would bat an optic at a repair crew disappearing, but they had gotten out that they had the Allspark so Ratchet was sure there had been search and rescue crews looking for them, but how many had been concerned for the bots rather than the Allspark?

"You okay?" asked Wheeljack. "You're getting that depressed feeling you get when your thoughts wander."

Ratchet shook his head. "It's nothing. Just thinking about search and rescue attempts."

Wheeljack gave Ratchet a look that clearly said the explanation wasn't believed but dropped the subject. They'd had enough spar-to-spark talks for one solar cycle.

It was time to rest.

_And now Butterflies presents Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

Vector frowned as he studied the chapter. "Didn't this used to be two chapters?"

"One was too short, and the other was kind of pointless. I figured combining the two would improve the quality," explained KHGiggle.

"What was the point of this chapter?"

"Recovery from Lockdown, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Also a bit of character development on the side."

Vector nodded. "I can understand the need for a recovery chapter after that. And the next order of business is…" Vector paused when he read the datapad he'd pulled from nowhere. "Pteranodons aren't dinosaurs. We know that, but the Autobots don't. I'm not sure why I needed to explain that…"

"And finally, reviews. tamersten expressed compliments about the story and hopes KHGiggle will continue it."

"Which I will," interrupted KHGiggle. "It would take my sudden death to make me stop writing and updating…or very, very bad writer's block, but I'd at least publish an omake so I could let others know."

"Not to mention I plan to make you finish this if need be," muttered Vector. "That is all the points of interest as of now. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


	9. Wheeljack Has a Bad Night

Hector was really starting to hate his life. He had to spend pretty much all of his spare time looking around for information for Megatron or dealing with security issues for Powell. His marriage and family life was really starting to suffer because of it.

He had to admit that he did occasionally get unexpected benefits, like watching the lunar rover going over the surface of the moon. _"Have to say, I'm a bit surprised you want to see this. What does our moon matter to you?"_

**Nothing that concerns you.**

Hector let out an annoyed sigh and kept watching the screen. While some of the footage was interesting, most of it was pretty boring and monotonous.

Then the camera was suddenly knocked forward and broke to static.

Hector blinked. He typed a couple of keys to try and restore the connection, but it wasn't working. _"Looks like something destroyed the camera and possibly the rover too. Tough luck."_

He felt Megatron's annoyance filtering through, but that was it. He generally left Hector alone when something went wrong if there was nothing Hector could've done to stop it. **How goes your research into the girl and the identities of the Autobots?**

"_Well, it's been narrowed down. Turns out one of the alt modes was a DeLorean, which isn't exactly common. The paint job was especially unique so I was able to narrow it down to a single vehicle. I've identified the ambulance since it never responded to any emergencies. I also found an oddly colored SWAT van that I'm sure is an Autobot, but I'm not 100% sure. The motorcycle turned out to be unique enough that I was able to narrow it down, and I narrowed the yellow one down to two possibilities. As one was owned by the captain of our police department, the other one is obviously the Autobot. You said there was a sixth, but I don't know what his alt mode looks like except that it likely is gold, black, khaki, or a combination of the three. Given, they haven't been going into the city much since that Lockdown showed up."_ Not that Hector could blame them. The man made Boba Fett look like a philanthropist.

**And the girl?**

Hector pulled up every available picture of the girl, which wasn't many, and she was wearing a mask in most of them. _"Sari Sumdac has absolutely no record of her existence, no social security number, no birth certificate, no school record, Prof. Sumdac didn't even write a will. To complicate matters, she's living off the grid, which means I can't track any redirected water or electricity. Truthfully, if Soundwave hadn't gotten her name and picture, I wouldn't even know her identity. At this point, I think it would be best to instruct Soundwave to try and locate her with that cat of his."_

**Do it.**

Hector did as he was ordered. _"Honestly, I don't think there's anything else we can do unless they come back into the city. We'll just have to wait for Big Brother to catch them if they make any more jaunts."_

If Megatron caught the reference, he made no show of it.

As for what happened to the rover…

*CRUNCH!*

"Careful you bumbling oaf! You stepped on something!"

Lugnut lifted his pede and briefly noted that he appeared to have stepped on a small drone. "That's not important! You said this is where Megatron is!"

Hothead Blitzwing switched to Icy. "No, I said this is where the last transmission from Lockdown came from."

Lockdown made a disgusted sound. "Ugh, do not mention the bot's designation. He is an embarrassment to the Decepticon cause."

Blitzwing switched to Hothead and hit Lugnut over the head. "You idiot! He was tracking down the Autobots that deactivated Megatron so we could execute them!"

"No! Megatron is alive! I feel it in my circuitry!"

"Your circuitry's not worth slag!" Blitzwing switched back to Icy, who simply pinched his nasal ridge. "Look, we picked up the Nemesis's signal nearby. We might find something of interest there."

The Nemesis was visible from where they landed, but it wasn't until they got closer that they realized that type of shape it was in. It was in two pieces, and both pieces looked as if they'd been ripped apart by something. Given the blast from the space bridge, Blitzwing couldn't really say that was surprising.

Lugnut fell to his knees. "What has become of our leader's glorious flagship!?"

Blitzwing switched to Random and cackled. "Somebody doesn't know how to parallel park!" He switched back to Icy. "Now, let's see if we can find anything in there that will be useful."

It was more or less the same as they'd left it besides its rather sorry state of repair. The only really big difference was the storage facility for the protoforms.

"Ugh, as if one Starscream wasn't bad enough," muttered Icy

Instead of protoforms, they had a bunch of Starscreams as far as the eye could see. Lugnut cautiously opened up the chassis of one. "Well, at least they don't have sparks."

Random Blitzwing was too busy singing a song about clones as Random to hear. "Blitzwing."

"I think I'm a clone now!"

"Blitzwing."

"And every-"

"Blitzwing!"

Blitzwing froze for a klik before switching to Icy and straightening. "My apologies."

"Why would Starscream make copies of himself?" asked Lugnut. "They're useless without the Allspark to bestow life upon them."

Blitzwing switched to Random. "Because he loves himself so much that he-" Icy forcibly took control to prevent Random from finishing his sentence. There were just some things he didn't need to hear. Icy made his way over to a Starscream that was missing one of its servos and optics. "Some of this one's parts have been removed. Perhaps Starscream injured himself and needed replacements."

"Could it have been the Autobots?" asked Lugnut.

Icy shrugged. "Hard to say. It's possible he ran into Autobots and was injured, but he may have been injured in the explosion instead." He walked over to a nearby table. It had some dried energon and part of a servo on it. He switched to Random. "Naughty, naughty, not cleaning up after himself!"

"That's the servo he had to replace?" asked Lugnut. "There's not much left." It looked like only the upper half was left.

Blitzwing switched back to Icy and picked up the piece of Starscream. "Hm…This injury isn't from an explosion. It looks like the rest was ripped off, most likely at the joint. I doubt Starscream would give himself this sort of injury for any reason."

"Agreed," said Lugnut. "Starscream is far too much of a coward."

"Well, at least we can track his signal," said Icy. "Perhaps he has found something significant."

The lakebed:

Flareup caught a metal ball in her servos.

"You're not supposed to touch it with your servos!" shouted Wheeljack.

"Oh right." Flareup dropped it and kicked it towards Bulkhead. Bumblebee intercepted and kicked it back towards her and Prowl's side of the field.

Bumblebee had gotten bored. Not wanting to upset Ratchet, Bumblebee had looked for something that would distract him without causing trouble for Ratchet. After stumbling across a soccer game on a Spanish channel, Bumblebee had decided to organize a soccer game of his own. He'd recruited everyone for the game except for Ratchet.

Wheeljack had made a metal ball and was acting as the referee. Prowl and Bulkhead were the goalies. Flareup and Bumblebee were kicking the ball around.

Given, none of them were really clear on the rules, but they knew you couldn't touch the ball with your hands, only your feet.

Bumblebee dodged Flareup's attempts to block him and kicked the ball towards the goal. Prowl did an impressive somersault kick, sending the ball back to the other side of the 'field'. Bumblebee groaned while Flareup let out a triumphant shout and went after the ball. "I want Prowl to be my goalie next time," muttered Bumblebee.

Flareup kicked the ball at Bulkhead…only for it to bounce off his chassis. "Bulkhead's not exactly fair either," muttered Flareup. "Can we switch?"

Wheeljack checked his internal chronometer. "Actually, I need to go see about getting supplies," he said. He was running low on scrap metal again. He'd been putting off a return to the junk yard for Ratchet's peace of mind, but he was completely out of metal for repairs at this point. "It should be dark now, so I'm gonna go see what I can scavenge. If Ratchet asks, tell him I'll be back as soon as I can." He transformed to vehicle mode and drove off.

"So who's gonna referee now?" asked Bulkhead.

Bumblebee grinned. "Wanna ask Ratchet?"

"I don't think this is the sort of thing he'd be interested in," drawled Prowl.

"Do we even need a referee?" asked Flareup. "It's not like we actually understand the rules."

Bumblebee paused as he looked around the make-shift field…Which didn't real have lines…or actual goals…or most of the stuff soccer was supposed to have. "…Okay, you gotta point there."

"I still want to switch around," said Flareup. "Prowl and Bulkhead are too good at the goalie position."

"But being a goalie is boring!" complained Bumblebee.

Up above:

Wheeljack rolled into the junkyard and did a quick survey to make sure there weren't any humans around as he activated the scrambler device. He transformed and spent a few minutes sorting through the various junk. There was metal trash, glass trash, plastic trash, biodegradable trash, and some stuff Wheeljack didn't think he wanted to know the identity of.

Ew…Baby diapers. Wheeljack immediately moved to another location. "I wonder if there's any iron around here?"

Even higher up above:

"…So I'm not so sure Starscream is the best choice at this point."

"You dare doubt Megatron's wisdom?!"

Icy vented. "Not exactly. Starscream was a very good choice when Megatron first made him second in command. However, since then his skills and mentality have…deteriorated."

"Like you're one to talk…"

"Hey!" protested Hothead.

"But I have to agree. Starscream's changed, always talking behind Megatron's back and questioning his brilliant plans. He acts as if he wants our glorious leader to fail."

"I wouldn't think he remembers any of his scientific background if I hadn't seen the clones back there," admitted Icy. "Although, the process isn't too difficult if you have protoforms to use as a base."

"Yes, but Megatron has not yet seen a need to replace him," pointed out Lugnut. "If Starscream was irredeemable, Megatron would have removed him from his post by now."

"Megatron has been focused on nothing but the Allspark for over a thousand vorns," muttered Icy. He switched to Random. "He needs to pay more attention to his surroundings!"

"Do not insult Megatron!" shouted Lugnut

"Touchy touchy!" He switched back to Icy. "I think we should bring this up to the generals and have them vote on it. At this point, I don't think Starscream is fit to lead."

"There will be no need. I'm sure that if we bring this problem to Megatron's attention, he will be willing to give it consideration."

Icy rolled his optics at Lugnut's inability to believe Megatron was gone. Then he saw something that made him screech to a halt. "Wait!"

"What is it?"

Blitzwing pointed downward. "Focus your vision on that spot in particular."

Lugnut did. It took a klik to figure out what Blitzwing had seen since it was so far away, but he knew what Blitzwing was talking about as soon as he saw it. "An Autobot!" He flew down. "He shall pay for what they did to Megatron!"

Icy switched to Hothead and was right behind Lugnut. "I'll rip his spark out!"

Down below, Wheeljack paused as a sensation he often referred to as 'bad days ahead' ran up his spinal strut. Odd, where'd that come from? He looked around to make sure that a human hadn't snuck up and seen him. He didn't see any humans. He ran an infrared scan to be sure. There were some rats, but nothing bigger than that. So why did he still have a feeling of impending doom?

Wheeljack heard the war cry and had just enough time to look up before Blitzwing landed on him and pinned him to the ground. Hothead smirked. "Got him."

Lugnut landed beside them. "What have you done with our glorious leader?!"

Wheeljack blinked. Well, this was unfortunate. He definitely wasn't going to be able to get out of this situation on his own. He'd have to go along with it and hope that he got a chance to contact the others at some point. "Uh, he got pushed out of the ship during re-entry. I honestly don't see how he could've survived that."

"Lies!" shouted Lugnut.

Sumdac Systems:

Hector stared at the screen. Megatron had easily managed to pick up Wheeljack when he entered the city. Then he'd had some camerabots tail him from a distance. Hector had not been surprised when Wheeljack had transformed in a junkyard and started digging through scrap metal. He had been surprised when two bots he didn't recognize at all landed on top of Wheeljack. _"Friends of yours?"_

**Blitzwing and Lugnut. Lockdown must have been in contact with them at some point and they followed the location of his last transmission when he broke contact with them.**

"_Shall I contact them?"_

**Hm…Only Lugnut.**

"_I'm going to need a much more specific frequency if that's the case. Any reason why?"_

**There are very few individuals that I can trust, but Lugnut has proven his loyalty several times. It is unlikely he harbors any ill intentions towards me. More importantly, he has no desire to further his rank.**

Junkyard:

"Tell us where Megatron is or I'll smash your helm in," threatened Lugnut.

Blitzwing switched to Icy. "Lugnut, we have no proof that Megatron is alive."

"Plus, I can't tell you anything if my processor's smashed," pointed out Wheeljack. Icy took a moment to hit Wheeljack over the head. "Seriously, do that and I won't be able think, much less talk."

**Lugnut.**

Lugnut looked around. "Who was that?"

**It's me, Megatron.**

"Ah!" Lugnut got down on his knees. "Master…"

Blitzwing and Wheeljack stared at him. "Does he do that often?" asked Wheeljack.

Blitzwing switched to Hothead. "None of your business!"

"I knew you could not have been destroyed by such pathetic Autobots," continued Lugnut.

"Hey!" protested Wheeljack.

"What is it your command, my master?"

**There was an…incident, and I require some assistance. Ideally, I would use the Allspark, but something is blocking its signal. However, there may be another way.**

"Please tell me he doesn't always act like this," whispered Wheeljack.

Blitzwing switched to Random. "Someone has a cru-u-ush!"

Lugnut's vision suddenly blacked out and an image appeared in his processor.

It was a human (Not that Lugnut knew what a human was.) with dark skin and red hair. **This hybrid was able to create functional sparks. I suspect that she has some sort of connection to the Allspark. I want you to bring her to me at these coordinates.**

Wheeljack was looking at Blitzwing in horror. "Is there something wrong with _you_?"

Random cackled. "I've lost my mind! You wouldn't happen to have seen it?"

"But where can I find this strange creature?" asked Lugnut, ignoring the odd exchange between Wheeljack and Blitzwing. He didn't know why Megatron was referring to her as a hybrid, but he decided this was unimportant compared to helping his master.

**She's in the forest somewhere…That's the large group of brown and green organic objects bordering the city…She tends to move around so you'll need to locate her.**

Lugnut bowed. "Understood, my liege."

Wheeljack tried to surreptitiously activate his com link so he could inform Ratchet that he'd been jumped by a couple of certifiably insane Decepticons…But that plan was tossed out the window when Hothead Blitzwing punched the ground next to his head.

"Come, we must find the hybrid as Megatron commands!" insisted Lugnut.

Blitzwing changed to Icy. "Lugnut, I don't hear anything. You are experiencing a hallucination."

"Like you're one to talk," snapped Lugnut.

Blitzwing switched to Random. "I'm a different kind of crazy!"

Lugnut decided it wasn't worth arguing about and grabbed Blitzwing and Wheeljack before flying off. "To the forest!"

"Why are you bringing me?!" shouted Wheeljack.

"And they say I'm the crazy one!" Then Blitzwing head butted Lugnut.

Lugnut returned the favor.

The three fell and crashed into the forest. Wheeljack groaned and reached for his com. Icy Blitzwing slapped his servo away and put him into a lock and hold before climbing out of the crater with him. Somehow, Lugnut had climbed out before them. Blitzwing switched to Hothead. "Are you happy now, you malfunctioning scrapheap?!"

"Not now. We need to find the hybrid." Lugnut turned to Wheeljack. "How do we find the hybrid?"

Wheeljack stared. "Huh?"

"We're supposed to be capturing them for execution!" Hothead tried to remind Lugnut.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," said Wheeljack, "but I agree with this guy." He jerked his head towards Blitzwing. "How did you go from attacking me for what happened to Megatron to demanding I help you find some sort of hybrid, which by the way, I have never ever heard of and as such have no idea what you're talking about."

This earned him another punch from Blitzwing.

"Then I will find it myself!" declared Lugnut.

Blitzwing immediately turned his attention to his comrade. "Like Pit you will!"

Too late. Lugnut had already run off. Blitzwing and Wheeljack were forced to follow after him with Hothead shouting insults at Lugnut about his ancestry and intelligence the whole time.

"And Strika-"

Lugnut suddenly whirled around, pointing a pincer at Blitzwing's face. "Do not talk about my beloved like that!"

Wheeljack briefly wondered who Strika was and why Lugnut liked her enough to interrupt Blitzwing's tirade. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Blitzwing switched to Random. "Aw, did I hit a soft spot?"

"Could you let me get out from between you two if you're going to fight?" asked Wheeljack. He felt like he'd get squished if one of them decided to attack the other.

Before either could reply to what Wheeljack felt was a relevant question, a loud roar swept through the forest, making them pause/freeze.

Blitzwing switched to Icy. "What was that?" he demanded.

Wheeljack shrugged. "I've never heard that sound before." Although he had a pretty good idea what it was. The Dinobots were living out here, and that sounded like the sounds dinosaurs made in those documentaries he'd been watching over the past few solar cycles.

**It is possible that is a Dinobot. The target spends the majority of her time in the vicinity of them.**

"Understood." Lugnut started heading in the direction the roar came from.

Wheeljack's optics widened. "You don't go towards the roaring monster! Everyone knows that!"

Blitzwing switched to Random. "We're rebels!" Then he laughed and pushed Wheeljack forward.

Wheeljack groaned. Just his luck that he got abducted again! By a couple of nutcases no less. Ratchet was never gonna let him hear the end of this.

After walking for a while, Icy Blitzwing suddenly stopped. "We've been through here before."

Lugnut turned towards Blitzwing. "We have?"

Blitzwing pointed down at some recently destroyed trees. "You don't recognize your own servowork?"

Lugnut looked down and blinked a couple of times as if he didn't. "Oh, then…" He looked around before pointing in a seemingly random direction. "We'll go that way."

Blitzwing switched to Hothead. "Do you have a slagging clue where you're going?"

"I'm searching for the Dinobots."

Wheeljack nearly crashed when he heard that. How had someone like Lugnut found out about the Dinobots? Blitzwing switched to Icy. "You mean Autobots."

"No, Dinobots."

Icy frowned. "What's a Dinobot?"

Lugnut paused. "I don't know."

"And yet you're looking for them," deadpanned Blitzwing. "Why?"

"Megatron demands it!"

"I thought he demanded you find some sort of hybrid," Blitzwing reminded Lugnut.

"He says the hybrid is with the Dinobots," explained Lugnut.

"You're not making any sense." Blitzwing switched to Random. "That's my job!"

"It will all fall into place! I'm sure of it!" And Lugnut ran off before Blitzwing could try to argue.

Blitzwing switched to Hothead and ran after Lugnut while dragging a yelping Wheeljack behind him. "Get back here you slagging offspring of an outdated motherboard!"

The three proceeded to become completely lost for another hour or so. Hothead eventually stopped yelling insults at Lugnut and instead switched to Icy to try and talk him out of the seemingly pointless pursuit. Occasionally Random or Hothead popped up to make some sort of comment, but Lugnut continued to ignore all of them.

Then Lugnut suddenly stopped. Icy Blitzwing let out a relieved sigh. "Finally. Now can we please…" He trailed off when he got a good look at the very large footprints in the ground. "What's this?"

"Dinobots?" suggested Lugnut.

Blitzwing gave Lugnut a look before turning to Wheeljack. Wheeljack shrugged. "I'm an engineer. I don't know anything about identifying local species…or tracking."

Lugnut decided to follow the footprints. Blitzwing took another moment to examine the footprints. He had to admit that he was curious about what had made these footprints. Shrugging, he decided to follow after Lugnut. "Try to be quiet. Considering the size of these prints, it's likely that the creature that made them is quite large. There's a chance it will be dangerous to engage it directly."

Lugnut listened to Blitzwing's advice. He couldn't move silently due to his size, but he stopped knocking trees over at least.

Within a few minutes, the Dinobots came into view through the trees. They were all curled up in their alt form and in recharge. They weren't the only ones there. Wheeljack nearly glitched when he saw the giant wolf with wings. He'd never actually seen it, but it matched the descriptions Prowl and Flareup had given. And the wolf wasn't the only surprise. Standing at attention was a human with a lot of red hair. It took a moment for Wheeljack to realize it was probably the human he'd run into on his first scavenging run.

In contrast to the Dinobots, Silverbolt and Sari were wide awake and looking in the direction of the three bots. Silverbolt was growling, and Sari was poised to attack if whatever came out of the shadows was hostile.

That didn't stop Lugnut from moving forwards. Silverbolt and Sari immediately started growling at him, which made the Dinobots start to stir. Lugnut was not impressed and pointed at Sari. "You will come with me so that I may present you to Lord Megatron!"

Sari raised an eyebrow. "You're kidding."

"Puppy!" Random Blitzwing abandoned Wheeljack and ran over and tried to pet Silverbolt. "Nice puppy!"

Silverbolt promptly bit Blitzwing's servo.

Blitzwing switched to Hothead. "You slagger!" This was aimed partly at Silverbolt and partly at Random.

It also fully woke up the Dinobots. Angry at being so rudely woken up, they joined in the growling.

Wheeljack took advantage of this to finally activate his com link. _"Ratchet! Decepticons! Forest! Crazy! Dinobots! This has been a bad night cycle!"_

"_Decepticons?! Where are you?!"_

"_The forest! With the Dinobots! The Decepticons dragged me here, and I have no idea why except that they're completely insane!"_

Meanwhile, Sari was glaring at Lugnut. "Look, I don't care who you are or what this has to do with Megatron. I'm not going with you."

"Infidel!" Lugnut went to grab Sari, but Grimlock jumped on him. He threw off Grimlock, only to get rammed by Slag.

Seeing that a fight was inevitable. Hothead squeezed Silverbolt's neck, causing him to let go with a yelp. Hothead aimed one of his shoulder cannons at the winged wolf, fully prepared to finish him off, but Snarl, now in robot mode, threw his shield at him. Blitzwing managed turn so that it didn't do as much damage as it could have (It was very sharp.), but it still knocked him away from Silverbolt. That was when Sludge, also in robot mode, put him in a bear hug.

Lugnut had grabbed Slag by the horns and thrown him to the side. Swoop flew down and landed on Lugnut, pecking at his head. Lugnut made an annoyed sound and threw him off. He heard a transforming sound and turned just in time to catch Grimlock's flaming sword. "You not take Mommy!"

Lugnut threw himself forward, knocking Grimlock off balance and to the ground. He rolled off the Dinobot and stood up, transforming his arm to its 'Punch Of Kill Everything' mode and slamming it into the ground.

The resulting explosion caused a crater the size of a city block.

Lugnut looked around for Blitzwing. After a moment, Hothead Blitzwing pulled himself out of the ground and stalked over, a frown on his face. "I've told you once, I've told you a million times…" He punched Lugnut in the head. "Give me some warning before you use the punch!"

"What happened to the hybrid?" asked Lugnut, looking for Sari. "I must find her so I can present her to Megatron!"

Blitzwing switched to Icy. "Considering what organics are like…You probably squished it."

Lugnut blinked. Then he fell to his knees. "Master! Forgive me!"

And that was when Sari catapulted herself onto Blitzwing's face from seemingly nowhere. "What the-" Sari buried her spear into his left optic. She jumped off as Blitzwing shrieked and immediately switched to Hothead. "You miserable little insect!" He swiped for Sari, who only barely managed to dodge.

Lugnut got to his pedes. "Don't-"

Silverbolt suddenly shot out of the ground and into the back of Blitzwing's knees. Blitzwing caught himself and grabbed one of Silverbolt's wings, grunting as the wings unexpectedly cut into his servo. Silverbolt yelped before biting the servo. Blitzwing pulled back his free servo to punch Silverbolt.

*CLANG!*

But got hit by a flaming mace. "Let go Grandpa!" shouted Swoop.

The Dinobots had finally dug themselves out and threw themselves at the Decepticons with all the fury of giant, pissed off, pyromaniac robots.

A few moments later, Wheeljack dug himself out as well and stared at the scene for a moment before activating his com. _"Still alive!"_

"_What was that explosion?"_ demanded Ratchet.

"_Some sort of explosive mod. It left a huge crater. I'm surprised no one got deactivated. Now the Dinobots and a human and a very large wolf with wings are fighting the Decepticons. Not doing that badly either now that I think about it."_

"_Get out of there while they're distracted!"_ demanded Ratchet.

Wheeljack mentally frowned as he watched the fight. _"But there's something off. One of them keeps calling the human 'hybrid' and seems to be avoiding hurting her for some reason."_

"_That's not important!"_

"_Yes it is!"_ Wheeljack cut the com link and ignored the subsequent pings. He grabbed for the nearest Dinobot. "Hey!"

Slag snarled at Wheeljack and promptly rejoined the fight. Wheeljack didn't try to stop him. He tried for the next one to land near him, Sludge. "Excuse me!"

Sludge didn't snarl at him, but she didn't pay him any attention either.

The next to land near him was Silverbolt. Wheeljack didn't try talking to him since he was scary and didn't seem capable of communication.

Sari was the next to land next to Wheeljack. He quickly grabbed her. "Hold on for a klik!"

Sari blinked and frowned. "What do you want?"

"Look. I've had a bad night cycle. I've been tackled by Decepticons, dragged all over the place, dropped from the sky, and blown up, all while listening to their crazy ramblings. I want to do something about them just as much as you, and I think I've got an idea to at least incapacitate them."

Sari crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Yeah? What is it?"

Wheeljack hurriedly whispered his plan to her before setting her down. He ran off to gather his supplies, while Sari ran around delivering the plan to the others.

Once Wheeljack had found the materials he'd needed and put the device together, he ran back over to the crater. He took a moment to marvel at the fact that the group was managing to hold their own against two Decepticon Elite. Then he threw a rather large rock down into the crater. "Now!"

Sari ran across Lugnut's field of vision. He dove for her. Sari ran between Blitzwing's stabilizing servos just as Grimlock, Sludge, and Silverbolt tackled Blitzwing. The two collided with each other while everyone else backed away.

Then the rock Wheeljack tossed exploded. That shrapnel went flying, but the Decepticons and Dinobots had strong enough armor that it didn't hurt them. Sari and Silverbolt took shelter behind the Dinobots.

That wasn't what Wheeljack had been aiming for. What he'd been aiming for was to get the two stuck in one place, and the sticky, pasty substance coating Lugnut and Blitzwing was doing just that. Blitzwing switched to Random. "Gotta stick together!"

"Do you think this can hold us?!" shouted Lugnut, already starting to pull the adhesive apart.

"Not really." Then Wheeljack tossed a large bomb at the two.

That was when Blitzwing and Lugnut realized the extended Dinobot family had scrambled out of the crater and behind the surviving trees.

The resulting explosion knocked Wheeljack back, caught several trees on fire, and sent the two Decepticons flying. No one was really paying attention to the trajectory of the two.

"Me Grimlock like!"

"Pretty fire!"

"Oooh!"

"Okay, fire breaker time!" commanded Sari.

This apparently consisted of tossing the flaming trees in the crater, which was coated in soot and a disturbingly oily substance, and digging trenches to make sure the fire wouldn't spread.

Wheeljack, also blackened by soot, just continued to lay there, staring at the sky. Swoop briefly stopped his fire breaking job and nudged the engineer with his foot. "You crazy bot dead?"

"No…"

"Okay." Then Swoop went back to his job.

Shortly afterwards, the rest of the Autobots arrived. For a moment, they just stared at the destruction.

"Hi Daddy!" greeted Sludge

If Prowl could blush, he would.

While Bumblebee snickered at Prowl's nickname, Ratchet stalked over to Wheeljack. "What the Pit happened here?"

"Bad luck…and a couple explosions. I only caused one…I feel kind of numb, but in a good way. Does that make sense?"

"…A little…"

The kids were more interested in the Dino clan. "Is that the wolf that saved Prowl?" asked Bulkhead as he stared at Silverbolt.

Flareup nodded, though her attention was on the human fearlessly scampering among the pedes of the Dinobots. "Is that the human that saved Bumblebee's aft?"

"Yeah," said Bumblebee. He watched the scene with confusion evident on his face. "How do they know each other?"

Ratchet paused in looking over Wheeljack as the same thing occurred to him. Ratchet gave Prowl a look. "Did you know all these individuals know each other?"

Prowl though for a second. Well, Sari and Silverbolt had been exposed. No point in keeping it a secret at this point. "The Dinobots somehow adopted Sari, the human, as their carrier. Silverbolt, the wolf, is Sari's adopted sire, so he is the Dinobot's grandsire."

Ratchet twitched. "And you didn't mention this before because?"

"They're not Cybertronian, and they've willingly isolated themselves from the rest of society," explained Prowl. "They're not dangerous as long as you leave them alone, and they're fiercely protective of each other. If I wasn't bringing them energon, they wouldn't put up with my presence." Ratchet continued to give him a look. Prowl sighed. "This is their world, not ours, we have no right to interfere with their way of life."

"Exactly, we're not supposed to interfere with the native life forms," said Ratchet, turning Prowl's words against him. "What do you think the Dinobots living with them is?"

"Would you take a youngling away from its loving creators?" countered Prowl.

Ratchet didn't answer. He just stared at the Dino clan with a frown on his face before turning his attention back to Wheeljack.

By this time, Sari and Silverbolt decided that they'd successfully prevented the fire spreading and were now working on calming the Dinobots down. Curious, Flareup took a few steps closer. The Dinobots immediately swiveled in her direction and started growling. Flareup held up her servos in a pacifying gesture. "Wow, you guys are really something."

Sari gave Flareup a look that clearly said 'back off' and turned to Silverbolt. "So now what? It's not gonna be safe to stay here." Silverbolt nodded and glanced around for a moment before his gaze fell on the various Autobots.

Silverbolt limped right over to Ratchet and Wheeljack and started trying to get Wheeljack to his stabilizing servos. Ratchet swatted him away. "Stop that. I'm trying to realign Wheeljack's stabilizing relays, and you're not helping."

Silverbolt whined and turned his attention to Prowl, gingerly taking one of his servos in his mouth and dragging him towards the rest of the Dino clan. Prowl couldn't help but be confused by this strange behavior. "Is something wrong?"

A sound that sounded somewhere between a groan and a scream came out of the forest surrounding them. It was so bizarre and out of the ordinary, that it even gave Ratchet pause.

Prowl looked down as he felt Silverbolt tense up. Silverbolt was staring off into the shadows with wide, scared eyes. He looked like he wanted to run. That was startling. Silverbolt had jumped into a fight with two Decepticon Elite. What could possibly scare him to that extent?

Sari also looked like she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. "We need to go. Now."

"Why? What was that?" asked Flareup.

"The forest."

"You mean wind?"

"No."

Wheeljack managed to pull himself to his feet at that point. "Okay, feeling better now." Silverbolt abandoned Prowl to start pulling Wheeljack instead. "Wow, you really want us out of here, don't you?" He followed Silverbolt with no resistance at all. "Might as well see what you wanna show me."

Of course, Sari and the Dinobots followed after Silverbolt. Prowl followed the Dinobots. Ratchet followed Wheeljack. Bumblebee followed Ratchet. Bulkhead and Flareup exchanged looks before shrugging and following as well.

Silverbolt didn't stop pulling Wheeljack along until they were out of the forest and on the beach. At that point, Silverbolt let go of Wheeljack and flopped onto the ground. Wheeljack immediately started scratching him behind the ears. "You're actually a really friendly guy, aren't ya? You're totally on my friend list!" Silverbolt huffed but leaned into Wheeljack's touch.

Bumblebee ran over and started petting him too. "Can he understand us?"

Wheeljack shrugged. "Beats me, but it's not gonna stop me from thanking him!"

"Okay, then thanks for saving Wheeljack giant flying wolf!" said Bumblebee. Silverbolt just grunted.

Ratchet rolled his eyes at the two's antics before turning his attention to the Dinobots. They sustained some injuries while fighting the Decepticons. Odd as the situation was, he couldn't just leave them like that. However, as soon as he started for them, Sari intercepted and glared at him. "Stay away from my kids!"

Ratchet returned the glare. "Do you want the Dinobots to stay like that? They're not like organics. Their self-repair functions are limited, and they need to have damage manually repaired if they don't want to walk around like that for the next few stellar cycles."

"Sari, Ratchet is a very experienced medic," said Prowl. "He would never harm a youngling for any reason, and they do need treatment. Please, trust us."

Sari stared at the two for several moments before glancing at Silverbolt. He certainly didn't look like he was worried about anything. "I don't trust you, but I don't want the Dinobots to stay hurt," admitted Sari. "So you'll fix the Dinobots, but I'm gonna be watching you the whole time."

Ratchet shrugged. "Fair enough. I don't really trust you either."

Elsewhere:

Lugnut and Blizwing were half submerged off another beach. The blast had been enough to detach several limbs, so they were stuck. That wasn't what was upsetting Lugnut though.

"Master, I've failed you!"

"AHAHAHA! Can somebody give me a hand? Or a foot? Maybe a pelvis?" Blitzwing switched to Hothead. "You glitch head! You were so focused on the insect that you didn't even pay attention to what the others were doing!"

"I was doing as Megatron commanded you fool!"

"You got us blown to scrap, and I'm the fool?!"

A harrier jet happened to fly by just then. It stopped above them and transformed into a smirking Starscream. "Well, well, well, I wondered what all the commotion was about."

Blitzwing switched to Icy. "Were you here the whole time?"

"Yeah, why?"

Icy made an annoyed sound. "You couldn't have assisted us?"

"I was busy," lied Starscream. He'd been busy flying around, looking for any unusual signals while messing with human piloted jets that detected and chased him.

Blitzwing figured Starscream was lying. Nothing unusual about that. Icy decided to move onto something that had been bothering him. "We found the Nemesis. Why did you make so many clones of yourself?"

Starscream shrugged. "It gets boring in space."

"Megatron was going to use those to rebuild our people!" shouted Lugnut.

Starscream waved off Lugnut's concerns. "We can just recycle them later if it bothers you that much." He grinned. "Now, it seems like you are in dire need of some assistance, but first you have to offer me something in return: Absolute loyalty."

Sumdac systems:

"_Well, that didn't work."_

Megatron was very angry, but Hector figured it was at the other two rather than him, which made him somewhat safe.

**It seems I will have to have a…talk with Blitzwing and Lugnut when I next see them.**

"_Looks like we're going to go back to the original plan. Soundwave could probably find him again."_

**Not yet. I may have underestimated what these bots are capable of. Perhaps it would be prudent to call for reinforcements.**

Besides, he was still going to need material for his body, even if Sari Sumdac was brought to him.

Later:

"Almost done…" muttered Ratchet as he welded a crack in Sludge's arm. It was the last Dinobot injury he needed to treat, and Ratchet was perfectly willing to admit that he was glad this job was over. It turned out the Dinobots as a whole made terrible patients.

Swoop hadn't been much of a problem. He'd been curious about what Ratchet was doing and poked at the repairs, but Ratchet had managed to get him stop. The other Dinobots were considerably less cooperative.

Grimlock snapped at Ratchet whenever one of the repairs so much as stung. Eventually, the others just held him down while Ratchet made the repairs.

They had to do this with Slag too.

Snarl just gave Ratchet a stare that threatened disembowelment the whole time.

Sludge didn't make any threatening moves. That was good. What was bad was that she was flinching and whimpering the entire time. Her 'parents' tried to help, Prowl by holding Sludge's servo and Sari by whispering calming sounds to her.

Ratchet let out a sigh of relief as he finished up. "There, done. Finally."

"See? That wasn't so bad," said Sari.

Sludge stared at her arm, as if she was shocked that it was now back to normal. Her optics wandered to the one figure that hadn't been helping during the repairing process. "Grandpa be fixed?"

Everyone's optics went to Silverbolt. He'd been lying down the whole time, licking a large gash on his left hind leg.

"I can't fix organics like I do us," said Ratchet. "I can't solder any tears or replace parts. He has to heal on his own."

"Some stitches might help," interjected Sari. "Only it would have to be sterilized, and I don't see why you would have something like that."

"I got an idea!" said Wheeljack.

And that was how Ratchet found himself stapling the wounds of a giant mutant wolf/bird hybrid (Because what else could it be?) with a device Wheeljack used when he needed to temporarily hold something in place. "For the record, this is probably the strangest thing I've ever done." At least Silverbolt was behaving. He was tensed up, but he wasn't try to bite off Ratchet's servos. In that way, he was better behaved than his grandkids.

"Done." Silverbolt stood up, favoring his injured leg. He licked Ratchet.

Ratchet decided that was Silverbolt's way of saying thanks.

"Does this make you part of our group?" asked Flareup.

"We're neutrals," said Sari. "The Decepticons attacked us first. We were just defending ourselves." Silverbolt promptly gave Sari a disapproving look and growled. He and Sari had a brief stare off before Sari winced and threw her hands up. "Okay, if we see the Decepticons attacking someone, we'll help!"

Ratchet had to raise an optic ridge at the odd interaction before shrugging it off. Much as he hated to admit it, they could use help if more Decepticons showed up, and the Dinobots seemed well-suited to the task of fighting with their robot modes and weapons.

Sludge yawned. "Go home now?"

Sari shook her head. "It's not safe. That explosion's gonna attract all sorts of attention." She turned towards the lake and pointed towards an island. "We'll have to hide out on that island until it's safe for us to come back."

"Looks like we're gonna be neighbors from now on," commented Wheeljack. "We'll have to set up a playdate between the kids."

Sari blinked. "Huh?"

"That'd be pretty nice," added Bumblebee. "It gets boring down there."

"We play hide-and-seek!" added Swoop.

"Sure," said Bulkhead. "And we'll show you how to lob."

Sari groaned. "Fine. We're neighbors." What a weird turn of events. She turned towards the island. "Let's just hurry up and get over there so we can go back to sleep."

Silverbolt immediately flew off towards the island. Swoop transformed and went after him. Sari started swimming. The rest of the Dinobots would have to walk along the bottom of the lake with the Autobots. As the two groups separated, the kids and Prowl waved good-bye to the Dinobots. The Dinobots copied them before continuing on.

When the Dinobots climbed out onto the shore of the island, Silverbolt and Swoop were already asleep. Sari was ringing out her long hair. The remaining Dinobots transformed to their beast modes and curled up with the rest of their family.

Sari walked over and sat down against Silverbolt's chest, staring out towards Detroit as the sun started to rise.

She held up her hands and stared at them. She transformed them into their mechanical form and stared at them as she turned them over. She transformed them back to their organic form and let them drop to the ground with a sigh. She curled up into Silverbolt's fur. "Why do these sorts of things keep happening to me? I didn't ask for any of this…"

It was a long time before Sari was able to get any sleep.

_And now butterflies presents: Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._

"Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the chapter," said Vector. "The author's mucus has turned pink for some reason, but that's due to a Wheeljack-style chemistry accident."

"At least my sore throat's finally gone."

"Now, KHGiggle does not do accents," continued Vector. "This is done for two reasons. The first is that she has trouble spotting them, especially when there's a metallic tone to it, like with us Transformers. She still hasn't realized I have an English accent."

"You have an English accent?"

Vector rolled his optics. "See what I mean? She can't hear the accent Shockwave has either. The other reason is that reading accents gives her a headache."

"No it doesn't, it makes me hear the characters talk slow and monotone, and they just sound wrong. I can't be the only one with that issue!"

"In other words, KHGiggle respects the effort authors put into writing accents, but she feels it wouldn't work so well with her."

"Does anyone else have an accent that I need to know about?" asked KHGiggle.

"Ironhide has a southern accent."

"Well, yeah, everyone knows that."

"Flareup also has a southern accent."

"She does? I never noticed." KHGiggle paused. "Although she only had like one line in the Animated cartoon. It'd be pretty easy to miss."

"Wheeljack never even spoke in the Animated cartoon, so feel free to imagine him with any accent you like," finished Vector. He turned to look to the side. "Is there anything else to address?"

"Only if you want to talk about how the Dinobots weren't able to beat the Decepticons."

"No thank you." Vector turned his attention back to the audience. "That is all for this chapter. We hope to see you again at a later date."

_This has been Questions and Answers with Vector Prime._


End file.
